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CHILD'S 



HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



SYNDICATE TRADING COMPANY 
NEW YORK 



486555 



CONTENTS. 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAP. _ 

L Ancient England and the Romans ' 7 

II. Ancient England under the early Saxons 15 

III. England under the good Saxon,' Alfred 19 

IV. England under Athelstan and the six boy kings. . 25 
V. England under Canute the Dane 35 

VI. England under Harold Harefoot, Hardicanute, and 

Edward the Confessor 36 

VII. England under Harold the Second, and conquered 

by the Normans 43 

VIII. England under William the First, the Norman 

Conqueror 47 

IX. England under William the Second, called Rufus 53 
X. England under Henry the First, called Fine-Scholar 59 

XI. England under Matilda and Stephen 68 

XII. England under Henry the Second ... 71 

XIII. England under Richard the First, called the Lion- 
Heart 88 

XIV. England under King John, called Lackland 96 

XV. England under Henry the Third, called Henry 

the Third of Winchester 107 

XVI. England under Edward the First, called Xong- 

shanks .;..... 118 

XVII. England under Edward the Second 133 

XVIII. England under Edward the Third 141 

XIX. England under Richard the Second 152 

XX. England under Henry the Fourth, called Boling- 

broke i52 

XXI. England under Henry the Fifth , . . 167 

XXII. England under Henry the Sixth 176 

XXIII. England under Edward the Fourth 193 



CVATJEArS 



CMAr ?** 

XXIV England mder Edward the Fifth < ... ,. ,. 200 

XXV England inder Richard the Third .. 204 

XXVI England under Henry the Seventh- , » . 208 

XXVI I England under Henry the Eighth, called Bluff King 

Hal, and Burly King Harry 2ir. 

XXVIII. England under Henry the Eighth 228 

XXIX. England under Edward the Sixth 237 

XXX. England under Mary 244 

XXXI. England under Elizabeth 255 

XXXII. England under James the First 277 

^XXIII. England under Charles the First . . , 292 

XXX IV. England under Oliver Ciomwell 317 

XXXV, England under Charles the Second, called the Merry 

Monarch 332 

XXXVT. England under Tames the Second. 351 

KJCXVII r;o;idus'on. . ...^ .... - ... .. 363 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 

If you look at a map of the world, you will see, in the left* 
hand upper corner of the Eastern Hemisphere, two islands 
?ying in the sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. 
England and Scotland form the greater part of these islands, 
ireland is the next in size. The little neighboring islands, 
which are so small upon the map as to be mere dots, are chiefly 
little bits of Scotland, — broken off, I dare say, in the course of 
a great length of time, by the power of the restless water. 

In the old days, a long, long while ago, before our Saviour 
was born on earth, and lay asleep in a manger, these islands 
were in the same place ; and the stormy sea roared round them, 
just as it roars now. But the sea was not alive then with great 
ships and brave sailors, sailing to and from all parts of the 
world. It was very lonely. The islands lay solitary in the 
great expanse of water. The foaming waves dashed against 
their cliffs, and the bleak winds blew over their forests. But 
the winds and waves brought no adventurers to land upon the 
islands ; and the savage islanders knew nothing of the rest oi 
the world, and the rest of the world knew nothing of them. 

It is supposed that the Phoenicians, who were an ancient 
people, famous for carrying on trade, came in ships to thesff 
islands, and found that they produced tin and lead ; both very 
useful things, as you know, and both produced to this very 
hoar upon the sea-coast. The most celebrated tin-mines in Corn 
W^ l^re still close to the sea. One of them^ which I have seen, 



8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

is SO close to it that it is hollowed out underneath the ocean ; 
and the miners say that in stormy weather, when they are at 
work down in that deep place, they can hear the noise of the 
Waves thundering above their heads. So the Phoenicians, coast- 
ing about the islands, would come, without much difficulty, to 
where the tin and lead were. 

The Phoenicians traded with the islanders for these metals, 
and gave the islanders some other useful things in exchange. 
The islanders were, at first, poor savages, going almost naked, 
or only dressed in the rough skins of beasts, and staining their 
bodies, as other savages do, with colored earths and the juices 
of plants. But the Phoenicians, sailing over to the opposite 
coasts of France and Belgium, and saying to the people there, 
" We have been to those white cliffs across the water, which 
you can see in fine weather ; and from that country, which is 
called Britain, we bring this tin and lead," tempted some of the 
French and Belgians to come over also. These people settled 
themselves on the south coast of England, which is now called 
Kent ; and, although they were a rough people too, they taught 
the savage Britons some useful arts, and improved that part of 
the islands. It is probable that other people came over from 
Spain to Ireland, and settled there. 

Thus, by little and little, strangeis became mixed with the 
islanders, and the savage Britons grew into a wild, bold people ; 
almost savage still, especially in the interior of the country, 
away from the sea, where the foreign settlers seldom went ; but 
hardy, brave, and strong. 

The whole country was covered with forests and swamps. 
The greater part of it was very misty and cold. There were no 
roads, no bridges, no streets, no houses that you would think de- 
serving of the name. A town was nothing but a collection of 
straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round, 
and a low wall made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed one 
upon another. The people planted little or no corn, but lived 
upon the flesh of their flocks and cattle. They made no coins, 
but used metal-rings for money. They were clever in basket- 
work, as savage people often are; and they could make a 
coarse kind of cloth, and some very bad earthenware. But in 
building fortresses they were much more clever. 

They made boats of basket-work, covered with the skins of 
animals, but seldom, if ever, ventured far from the shore. They 
made swords of copper mixed with tin ; but these swords we>e 
of an awkward shape, and so soft that a heavy blow would bend 
one. They made light shields ; short, pointed dag^gers ; a 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS. 9 

gpears, which they jerked back, after they had thrown them at 
an enemy, by a long strip of leather fastened to the stem. The 
butt-end was a rattle, to frighten an enemy's horse. The ancient 
Britons, being divided into as many as thirty or forty tribes, 
each commanded by its own little king, were constantly fighting 
with one another, as savage people usually do ; and they always 
fought with these weapons. 

They were very fond of horses. The standard of Kent was 
the picture of a white horse. They could break them in and man- 
age them wonderfully well. Indeed, the horses (of which they 
had an abundance, though they were rather small) were so well 
taught in those days, that they can scarcely be said to have im- 
proved since ; though the men are so much wiser. They un- 
derstood and obeyed every word of command ; and would stand 
still by themselves, in all the din and noise of battle, while 
their masters went to fight on foot. The Britons could not 
have succeeded in their mdst remarkable art without the aid of 
these sensible and trusty animals. The art I mean is the con- 
struction and management of war-chariots, or cars, for which 
they have ever been celebrated in history. Each of the best 
sort of these chariots, not quite breast-high in front, and open 
at the back, contained one man to drive, and two or three 
others to fight, — all standing up. The horses who drew them 
were so well trained, that they would tear at full gallop, over 
the most stony ways, and even through the woods ; dashing 
down their masters' enemies beneath their hoofs, and cutting 
them to pieces with the blades of swords, or scythes, which 
were fastened to the wheels, and stretched out beyond the car 
on each side, for that cruel purpose. In a moment, while at 
full speed, the horses would stop at the driver's command. 
The men would leap out, deal blows about them with their 
swords, like hail, leap on the horses, on the pole, spring back 
into the chariots anyhow ; and, as soon as they were safe, the 
horses tore away again. 

The Britons had a strange and terrible religion, called the 
religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought over, 
in very early times indeed, from the opposite country of France, 
anciently called Gaul, and to have mixed up the worship of the 
Serpent, and of the Sun and Moon, with the worship of some 
of the heathen gods and goddesses. Most of its ceremonies 
were kept secret by the priests, — the Druids, — who pretended 
to be enchanters, and who carried magicians' wands, and wore, 
each of them, about his neck, what he told the ignorant people, 
was a serpent's ^%g in a golden case. But it is certain that tha 



10 A CHILD'' S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Druidical ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victim% 
the torture of some suspected criminals, and, on particular oo 
casions, even the burning alive, in immense wicker-cages, of a 
number of men and animals together. The Druid priests had 
some kind of veneration for the oak, and for the mistletoe (the 
same plant that we hang up in houses at Christmas-time now) 
when its white berries grew upon the oak. They met to- 
gether in dark woods, which they called sacred groves ; and 
there they instructed, in their mysterious arts, young men who 
came to them as pupils, and who sometimes stayed with them 
as long as twenty years. 

These Druids built great temples and altars open to the sky, 
fragments of some of which are yet remaining. Stonehenge, 
on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, is the most extraordinary of 
these. Three curious stones, called Kits Coty House, on Blue- 
bell Hill, near Maidstone, in Kent, form another. We knov/, 
from examination of the great blocks of which such buildings 
are made, that they could not have been raised without the 
aid of some ingenious machines which are common now, but 
which the ancient Britons certainly did not use in making 
their own uncomfortable houses. I should not wonder if the 
Druids, and their pupils who stayed with them twenty years, 
knowing more than the rest of the Britons, kept the people out 
of sight while they made these buildings, and then pretended 
that they built them by magic. Perhaps they had a hand in 
the fortresses too ; at all events, as they were very powerful, and 
very much believed in, and as they made and executed the 
laws, and paid no taxes, I don't wonder that they liked their 
trade. And, as they persuaded the people that the more Druids 
there were the better off the people would be, I don't wonder 
that there were a good many of them. But it is pleasant to 
think that there are no Druids fiow, who go on in that way, and 
pretend to carry enchanters' wands and serpents' eggs ; and, 
of course, there is nothing of the kind anywhere. 

Such was the improved condition of the ancient Britons 
fifty-five years before the birth of our Saviour, when the Romans, 
under their great general, Julius Caesar, were masters of all the 
rest of the known world. Julius Caesar had then just conquered 
Gaul ; and hearing, in Gaul, a good deal about the opposite 
island with the white cliffs, and about the bravery of the 
Britons who inhabited it (some of whom had been fetched o\er 
to help the Gauls in the war against him), he resolved, as he 
was so near, to come and conquer Britain next. 

So Julius Caesar came sailing over to this island of ours, 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND THE ROMANS 1 1 

with eighty vessels and twelve thousand men. And he came 
from the French coast between Calais and Boulogne, " because 
thence was the shortest passage into Britain ; " just for the 
same reason as our steamboats now take the same track every 
day. He expected to conquer Britain easily. But it was not 
such easy work as he supposed ; for the bold Britons fought 
most bravely. And what with not having his horse-soldiers with 
him (for they had been driven back by a storm), and what with 
having some of his vessels dashed to pieces by a high tide after 
they were drawn ashore, he ran great risk of being totally de- 
feated. However, for once that the bold Britons beat him, he 
beat them twice ; though not so soundly but that he was very 
glad to accept their proposals of peace, and go away. 

But in the spring of the next year, he came back ; this time 
with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men. The 
British tribes chose, as their general-in-chief, a Briton, whom 
the Romans in their Latin language called Cassivellaunus, but 
whose British name is supposed to have been Caswallon. A 
brave general he was ; and well he and his soldiers fought the 
Roman army ! So well, that, whenever in that war the Roman 
soldiers saw a great cloud of dust, and heard the rattle of the 
rapid British chariots, they trembled in their hearts. Besides 
a number of smaller battles, there was a battle fought near 
Canterbury, in Kent ; there was a battle fought near Chertsey, 
in Surrey ; there was a battle fought near a marshy little 
town in a wood, J^he capital of that part of Britain which 
belonged to Cassivellaunus, and which was probably near what 
is now Saint Albans, in Hertfordshire. However, brave 
Cassivellaunus had the worst of it, on the whole ; though he 
and his men always fought like lions. As the other British 
chiefs were jealous of him, and were always quarrelling with 
him and with one another, he gave up, and proposed peace. 
Julius Caesar was very glad to grant peace easily, and to go 
away with all his remaining ships and men. He had expec- 
ted to find pearls in Britain, and he may have found a few for 
anything I know ; but, at all events, he found delicious oysters. 
And I am sure he found tough Britons ; of whom, I dare say, 
he made the same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte, the great 
French general, did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when 
he said they were such unreasonable fellows that they never 
knew when they were beaten. They never did know, I believe, 
and never will. 

Nearly a hundred years passed on ; and all that time there 
W38 p^ace in Britain, The Britons improved their towns and 



I a A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

mode of life, became more civilized, travelled, and learned % 
great deal from the Gauls and Romans. At last, the Roman 
Emperor Claudius sent Aulus Plautius, a skilful general, with 
a mighty force, to subdue the island ; and shortly afterwards 
arrived himself. They did little ; and Ostorius Scapula, 
another general, came. Some of the British chiefs of tribes 
submitted. Others resolved to fight to the death. Of these 
brave men, the bravest was Caractacus, or Caradoc, who gave 
battle to the Romans with his army among the mountains of 
North Wales. " This day," said he to his soldiers, " decides 
the fate of Britain ! Your liberty, or your eternal slavery, 
dates from this hour. Remember your brave ancestors, who 
drove the great Caesar himself across the sea." On hearing 
these words, his men, with a great shout, rushed upon the 
Romans. But the strong Roman swords and armor were too 
much for the weaker British weapons in close conflict. The 
Britons lost the day. The wife and daughter of the brave 
Caractacus were taken prisoners ; his brothers delivered them- 
selves up; he himself was betrayed into the hands of the 
Romans by his false and base stepmother ; and they carried 
bim, and all his family, in triumph to Rome. 

But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, 
great in chains. His noble air and dignified endurance of dis- 
iress, so touched the Roman people who thronged the streets 
to see him, that he and his family were restored to freedom. 
No one knows whether his great heart broke, and he died in 
Rome, or whether he ever returned to his* own dear country. 
English oaks have grown up from acorns, and withered away 
when they were hundreds of years old, — and other oaks have 
sprung up in their places, and died too, very aged, — since the 
rest of the history of the brave Caractacus was forgotten. 

Still the Britons would not yield. They rose again and 
again, and died by thousands, sword in hand. They rose on 
every possible occasion. Suetonius, another Roman general, 
came and stormed the Island of Anglesey (then called Mona), 
which was supposed to be sacred ; and he burnt the Druids in 
their own wicker-cages, by their own fires. But even while he 
was in Britain with his victorious troops, the Britons rose. 
Because Boadicea, a British queen, the widow of the King of 
the Norfolk and Suffolk people, resisted the plundering of her 
property by the Romans, who were settled in England, she 
was scourged by order of Catus, a Roman officer ; and her 
two daughters were shamefully insulted in her presence ; and 
h^ husband's relations were made slaves. To avenge this 



ANCIENT ENGLAND AND TtfE ROMANS. 



n 



iniury, the Britons rose with all their might and rage. They 
drove Catus into Gaul ; they laid the Roman possessions waste ; 
they forced the Romans out of London (then a poor little 
town, but a trading-place) ; they hanged, burnt, crucified, and 
slew by the sword, seventy thousand Romans in a few days. 
Suetonius strengthened his army, and advanced to give them 
battle. They strengthened their army, and desperately at- 
uicked his, on the field where it was strongly posted. Before 
the first charge of the Britons was made, Boadicea, in a war- 
chariot, with her fair hair streaming in the wind, and her in- 
jured daughters lying at her feet, drove among the troops, and 
cried to them for vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious 
Romans. The Britons fought to the last ; but they were van- 
quished with great slaughter, and the unhappy queen took 
poison. 

Still, the spirit of the Britons was not broken. When 
Suetonius left the country, they fell upon his troops, and re-took 
the Island of Anglesey. Agricola, came fifteen or twenty years 
afterwards, and re-took it once more, and devoted seven years 
to subduing the country, especially that part of it which is now 
called Scotland ; but its people, the Caledonians, resisted him 
at every inch of ground. They fought the bloodiest battles with 
him ; they killed their very wives and children, to prevent his 
making prisoners of them ; they fell, fighting, in such great 
numbers that certain hills in Scotland are yet supposed to be 
vast heaps of stones piled up above their graves. Hadrian came 
thirty years afterwards ; and still they resisted him. Severus 
came nearly a hundred years afterwards ; and they worried his 
great army like dogs, and rejoiced to see them die, by thousands, 
in the bogs and swamps. Caracalla, the son and successor of 
Severus, did the most to conquer them, for a time ; but not by 
force of arms. He knew how little that would do. He yielded 
up a quantity of land to the Caledonians, and gave the Britons 
the same privileges as the Romans possessed. There was 
peace after this for seventy years. 

Then new enemies arose. They were the Saxons, a fierccj 
seafaring people from the countries to the north of the Rhine, 
the great river of Germany, on the banks of which the bejx 
grapes grow to make the German wine. They began to ca^ 
in pirate ships, to the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain, T^n^ 
plunder them. They were repulsed by Carausius, a na\ 
either of Belgium or of Britain, who was appointed by V 
Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons fik 
began to fight upon the sea. But after this time they renew^A 



H 



A CmiD'S HtSTOkV OF EI^GLAND. 



their ravages. A few years more, and the Scots (which was 
then the name for the people of Ireland) and the Picts, a 
northern people, began to make frequent plundering incursions 
into the South of Britain. All these attacks were repeated, at 
intervals, during two hundred years, and through a long succes- 
sion of Roman emperors and chiefs ; during all which length of 
time, the Britons rose against the Romans over and over again. 
At last, in the days of the Roman Honorius, when the Roman 
power all over the world was fast declining, and when Rome 
wanted all her soldiers at home, the Romans abandoned all 
hope of conquering Britain, and went away. And still, at last 
as at first, the Britons rose against them in their old, brave 
manner ; for, a very little while before, they had turned away 
the Roman magistrates, and declared themselves an independent 
people. 

Five hundred years had passed since Julius Caesar's first in- 
vasion of the Island, when the Romans departed from it forever. 
In the course of that time, although they had been the cause 
of terrible fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to im- 
prove the condition of the Britons. They had made great 
military roads ; they had built forts ; they had taught them how 
to dress and arm themselves much better than they had ever 
known how to do before ; they had refined the whole British way 
of living. Agricola had built a great wall of earth, more than 
seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle to beyond Car- 
lisle, for the purpose of keeping out the Picts and Scots ; Ha- 
drian had strengthened it ; Severus finding it much in want of 
repair, had built it afresh of stone. Above all, it was in the 
Roman time, and by means of Roman ships, that the Christian 
religion was first brought into Britain, and its people first taught 
the great lesson, that, to be good in the sight of God, they 
must love their neighbors as themselves, and do unto others as 
they would be done by. The Druids declared that it was very 
wicked to believe in any such thing, and cursed all the people 
who did believe it very heartily. But when the people found 
that they were none the better for the blessings of the Druids, 
and none the worse for the curses of the Druids, but that the 
"^n shone and the rain fell without consulting the Druids at all, 
t«w just began to think that the Druids were mere men, and 
that^t signified very little whether they cursed or blessed. After 
whicl\the pupils of the Druids fell off greatly in numbers, and 
the Dr\ds took to other trades. 

Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England. 
It is but little that is known of those five hundred years ; but 



J 



ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS. 



IS 



some remains of them are still found. Often, when laborers 
are digging up the ground to make foundations for houses or 
churches, they light on rusty money that once belonged to the 
Romans. Fragments of plates from which they ate, of goblets 
from which they drank, and of pavement on which they trod, 
are discovered among the earth that is broken by the plough, or 
the dust that is crumbled by the gardener's spade. Wells that 
the Romans sunk still yield water ; roads that the Romans made 
form part of our highways. In some old battle-fields, British 
spear-heads and Roman armor have been found, mingled to- 
gether in decay, as they fell in the thick pressure of the fight. 
Traces of Roman camps, overgrown with grass, and of mounds 
that are the burial-places of heaps of Britons, are to be seen in 
almost all parts of the country. Across the bleak moors of 
Northumberland, the wall of Severus, overrun with moss and 
weeds, still stretches, a strong ruin ; and the shepherds and 
their dogs lie sleeping on it in the summer weather. On Salis- 
bury Plain, Stonehenge yet stands, — a monument of the earlier 
time, when the Roman name was unknown in Britain, and when 
the Druids, with their best magic-wands, could not have written 
it in the sands of the wild sea-shore. 



CHAPTER II. 

ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS. 

The Romans had scarcely gone away from Britain when the 
Britons began to wish they had never left it. For the Roman 
soldiers being gone, and the Britons being much reduced in 
numbers by their long wars, the Picts and Scots came pouring 
in over the broken and unguarded wall of Severus in swarms. 
They plundered the richest towns, and killed the people ; and 
came back so often for more booty and more slaughter, that the 
unfortunate Britons lived a life of terror. As if the Picts aW^ 
Scots were not bad enough on land, the Saxons attacked </ 
islanders by sea ; and, as if something more were still wsnf 
to make them miserable, they quarrelled bitterly among v 
selves as to what prayers they ought to say, and how they <\ 
to say them. The priests, being very angry with one ana 
on these questions, cursed one another in the heartiest mann 



1 6 A CHILD'S mSTORY OF ENGLAND. 

iind (uncommonly like the old Druids) cursed all the people 
whom they could not persuade. So altogether the Britons weje 
very badly off, you may believe. 

They were in such distress, in short, that they sent a lettel 
to Rome, entreating help (which they called the groans of the 
Britons), and in which they said, " The barbarians chase us 
into the sea ; the sea throws us back upon the barbarians ; and 
we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword, 
or perishing by the waves." But the Romans could not help 
them, even if they were so inclined ; for they had enough to do 
to defend themselves against their own enemies, who were then 
very fierce and strong. At last the Britons, unable to bear their 
hard condition any longer, resolved to make peace with the 
Saxons, and to invite the Saxons to come into their country, and 
help them to keep out the Picts and Scots. 

It was a British prince named Vortigern who took this res- 
olution, and who made a treaty of friendship with Hengist and 
Horsa, two Saxon chiefs. Both of these names, in the old 
Saxon language, signify horse ; for the Saxons, like many other 
nations in a rough state, were fond of giving men the names of 
animals, as horse, wolf, bear, hound. The Indians of North 
America — a very inferior people to the Saxons, though — do the 
same to this day. 

Hengist and Horsa drove out the Picts and Scots ; and 
Vortigern, being grateful to them for that service, made no op- 
position to their settling themselves in that part of England 
which is called the Isle of Thanet, or to their inviting over 
more of their countrymen to join them. But Hengist had a 
beautiful daughter named Rowena ; and when at a feast, she 
filled a golden goblet to the brim with wine, and gave it to 
Vortigern, saying in a sweet voice, " Dear king, thy health ! " 
the king fell in love with her. My opinion is, that the cunnmg 
Hengist meant him to do so, in order that the Saxons might 
have greater influence with him ; and that the fair Rowena 
came to that feast, golden goblet and all, on purpose. 

At any rate, they were married ; and long afterwards, when- 

ver the king was angry with the Saxons, or jealous of their 

J ^^"jroachments, Rowena would put her beautiful arms round 

'^s Vck, and softly say, " Dear king, they are my people ! Be 

avonst^le to them, as you loved that Saxon girl who gave you 

che golden goblet of wine at the feast." And really I don't see 

how the king could help himself. 

Ah ! We must all die ! In the course of years, Vortigern 
didd (he was dethroned, and put in prison, first, I am afraid) ; 
\ 

/ 



ANCIENT ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLY SAXONS, 17 

and Rowena died ; and generations of Saxons and Britons 
died ; and events that happened during a long, long time, 
would have been quite forgotten but for the tales and songs of 
the old bards, who used to go about from feast to feast, with 
their white beards, recounting the deeds of their forefathers. 
Among the histories of which they sang and talked, there was 
a famous one concerning the bravery and virtues of King 
Arthur, supposed to have been a British prince in those old 
times. But whether such a person really lived, or whether there 
were several persons whose histories came to be confused to 
gether under that one name, or whether all about him was in. 
vention, no one knows. 

I will tell you shortly what is most interesting in the early 
Saxon times, as they are described in these songs and stories 
of the bards. 

In and long after the days of Vortigern, fresh bodies of 
Saxons, under various chiefs, came pouring into Britain. 
One body, conquering the Britons in the East and settling 
there, called their kingdom Essex ; another body settled in the 
West, and called their kingdom Wessex; the Northfolk, or 
Norfolk people, established themselves in one place ; the 
Southfolk, or Suffolk people, established themselves in anot^^;^ • 
and gradually seven kingdoms, or states, arose in Engla/rQ/ -* 
which were called the Saxon Heptarchy. The poor Britc/^' 
falling back before these crowds of fighting men whom they 1/ 
innocently invited over as friends, retired into Wales and 
adjacent country, into Devonshire and into Cornwall. T^ ' 
parts of England long remained unconquered. And in C 
wall now, — where the sea-coast is very gloomy, steep, ( ^ 
rugged ; where, in the dark winter-time, ships have often .er 
wrecked close to the land, and every soul on board has 1st ; 
ished ; where the winds and waves howl drearily, and spliance 
solid rocks into arches and caverns, — there are very anoble 
ruins, which the people call the ruins of King Arthur's C him» 

Kent is the most famous of the seven Saxon kingdom god- 
cause the Christian religion was preached to the Saxons ther 1 
(who domineered over the Britons too much to care for whav 
they said about their religion, or anything else) by Augustine, a \ 
monk from Rome. King Ethelbert of Kent was soon con- 
verted ; and the moment he said he was a Christian, his 
courtiers all said they were Christians ; after which, ten thou- 
sand of his subjects said they were Christians too. Augustine 
built a little church close to this king's palace, on the ground 
now occupied by the beautiful cathedral of Canterbury. Sebert, 



l8 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the king's nephew, built on a muddy, marshy place near Lon 
don, where there hati been a temple to Apollo, a church dedi« 
Gated to Saint Peter, which is now Westminster Abbey. And 
in London itself, on the foundation of a temple to Diana, he 
built another little church, which has risen up since that old 
time to be Saint Paul's. 

After the death of Ethelbert, Edwin, King of Northumbria, 
who was' such a good king that it was said a woman or child 
might openly carry a purse of gold in his reign without fear, 
allowed his child to be baptized, and held a great council to 
consider whether he and his people should all be Christians or 
not. It was decided that they should be. Coifi, the chief 
priest of the old religion, made a great speech on the occasion. 
In this discourse, he told the people that he had found out the 
old gods to be impostors. "I am quite satisfied of it," he said. 
" Look at me ! I have been serving them all my life, and they 
have done nothing for me ; whereas, if they had been really 
powerful, they could not have decently done less, in return for 
all I have done for them, than make my fortune. As they have 
never made my fortune, I am quite convinced they are im- 
postors." When this singular priest had finished speaking, he 
-'^^^ilv ^rmed himself with sword and lance, mounted a war- 
>e, rode at a furious gallop in sight of all the people to the 
and flung his lance against it as an insult. From that 
:he Christian religion spread itself among the Saxons, and 
their faith. 

next very famous prince was Egbert. He lived about 
and fifty years afterwards, and claimed to have a 
to the throne of Wessex than Beortric, another 
ice who was at the head of that kingdom, and who 
I^Durga, the daughter of Offa, king of another of the 
loms. This Queen Edburga was a handsome 
'lo poisoned people when they offended her. One 
' a cup of poison for a certain noble belonging to 
^^y^^Ji^tX yhviX. her husband drank of it too, by mistake, and 
died. Upon this, the people revolted in great crowds ; and 
running to the palace, and thundering at the agates, cried, 
" Down with the wicked queen who poisons men ! " They 
drove her out of the country, and abolished the title she had 
disgraced. When years had passed away, some travellers came 
home from Italy, and said that in the town of Pavia they had 
seen a ragged beggar-woman — who had once been handsome, 
but was then shrivelled, bent, and yellow — wandering about the 
Stress, crying for bread ; and that this beggar-woman wa,§ the 




ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED. i^ 

poisoning English queen. It was, indeed, Edburga ; and so 
she died, without a shelter for her wretched head. 

Egbert, not considering himself safe in England, in conse- 
quence of his having claimed the crown of Wessex (for he 
thought his rival might take him prisoner and put him to death), 
sought refuge at the court of Charlemagne, King of France. 
On the death of Beortric, so unhappily poisoned by mistake, 
Egbert came back to Britain, succeeded to the throne of 
Wessex, conquered some of the other monarchs of the seven 
kingdoms, added their territories to his own, and, for the first 
time, called the country over which he ruled England. 

And now new enemies arose, who, for a long time, troubled 
England sorely. These were the Northmen, — the people of 
Denmark and Norway ; whom the English called the Danes. 
They were a warlike people, quite at home upon the sea ; not 
Christians ; very daring and cruel. They came over in ships, 
and plunde-red and burned wheresoever they landed. Once 
they beat Egbert in battle. Once Egbert beat them. But they 
cared no more for being beaten than the English themselves. 
In the four following short reigns, of Ethelwulf and his sons 
Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred, they came back again, over 
and over again, burning and plundering, and laying Englai}^/ 
waste. In the last-mentioned reign, they seized Edmund, K/ji' 
of East England, and bound him to a tree. Then they propof 
to him that he should change his religion ; but he, being a g' 
Christian, steadily refused. Upon that they beat him ; rr: 
cowardly jests upon him, all defenceless as he was j shot ar/ 
at him ; and finally struck off his head. It is impossible tc 
whose head they might have struck off next, but for the d ^S 
of King Ethelred from a wound he had received in fig' ^^^ 
against them, and the succession to his throne of the best'^^ ^ 
wisest king that ever lived in England. ^"^^ 

him» 
3 god- 



CHAPTER III. 

ENGLAND UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED. 

Alfred the Great was a young man three-and-twenty years 
of age when he became king. Twice in his childhood he had 
b^en taken to Rome, where the Saxop. nobles were in thf habit 



20 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of going on journeys which they supposed to be religious ; and 
once he had stayed for some time in Paris. Learning, however, 
was so little cared for then, that at twelve years old he had not 
been taught to read ; although, of the sons of King Ethel wulf, 
he, the youngest, was the favorite. But he had — as most men 
who grow up to be great and good are generally found to have 
had — an excellent mother : and one day this lady, whose name 
was Osburga, happened, as she was sitting among her sons, to 
) read a book of Saxon poetry. The art of printing was not known 
\ until long and long after that period ; and the book, which was 
I written, was what is called " illuminated " with beautiful bright 
letters, richly painted. The brothers admiring it very much, 
their mother said, " I will give it to that one of you four princes 
who first learns to read." Alfred sought out a tutor that very 
day, applied himself to learn with great diligence, and soon won 
the book. He was proud of it all his life. 

This great king, in the first year of his reign, fought nine 
battles with the Danes. He made some treaties with them too, 
by which the false Danes swore they would quit the country. 
They pretended to consider that they had taken a very solemn 
oath, in swearing this upon the holy bracelets that they wore, 
_JLad which were always buried with them, when they died. But 
^*^^eY cared little for it ; for they thought nothing of breaking 
^\s, and treaties too, as soon as it suited their purpose, and 
g back again to fight, plunder, and burn, as usual. One 
V%inter, in the fourth year of King Alfred's reign, they 
''^emselves in great numbers over the whole of England ; 
"'ispersed and routed the king's soldiers, that the king 
''one, and was obliged to disguise himself as a common 
d to take refuge in the cottage of one of his cow- 
id not know his face. 

^g Alfred, while the Danes sought him far and near, 
\ one day by the cowherd's wife, to watch some 

/ve put to bake upon the hearth. But being at 
bow and arrows, with which he hoped to punish 
the lai^e Danes when a brighter time should come, and thinking 
deeply of his poor, unhappy subjects, whom the Danes chased 
through the land, his noble mind forgot the cakes ; and they 
were burnt. " What ! " said the cowherd's wife, who scolded 
him well when she came back, and little thought she was scold- 
ing the king, " You will be ready enough to eat them by and 
by ; and yet you cannot watch them, idle dog !" 

At length the Devonshire men made head against a new host 
©f Danes who landed on their coast \ killed their chiaf, an»d 




ENCLANr) UNDER THE GOOD SAXON, ALFRED. 

! \ 

captured their flag (on which was represented the likeness of 1 1 
raven, — a very fit bird for a thievish army Uke that, I thi/ j , ' 
The loss of their standard troubled the Danes greatly ; for /; 'j '^ 
believed it to be enchanted, — woven by the three daughter ( { 
one father in a single afternoon. And they had a story an^ \ 
themselves, that when they were victorious in battle, the ra^-^ 
stretched his wings, and seemed to fly ; and thai when they W 
defeated, he would droop. He had good reason to droop ri -V "> 
if he cpuld have done anything half so sensible ; for King Al^ "^ ♦* 
joined the Devonshire men, made a camp with them on a pf *^1 
of firm ground in the midst of a bog in Somersetshire, and j ' j 
pared for a great attempt for vengeance on the Danes, and' ^ 
deliverance of his oppressed people. j J^, 

But first, as it was important to know how numerous tj ;^ 
pestilent Danes were, and how they were fortified. King Ali"-- ly 
being a good musician, disguised himself as a glee-man or ^ t| 
strel, and went with his harp to the Danish camp. He pi ^ ii 
and sang in the very tent of Guthrum, the Danish leaderj I 

entertained the Danes as they caroused. While he seemt 
think of nothing but his music, he was watchful of their t\. 
their arms, their discipline, — everything that he desired to ki ! 
And right soon did this great king entertain them to a diffe 
tune , for, summoning all his true followers to meet him atl \ 
appointed place, Vv^here they received him with joyful shouts a| 'i 
tears as the monarch whom many of them had given up for Iq i 
or dead, he put himself at their head, marched on the Danij * 
camp, defeated the Danes with great slaughter, and besieg| i 
them for fourteen days to prevent their escape. But, being as 
merciful as he was good and brave, he then, instead of killing 
them, proposed peace, — on condition that they should altogether 
depart from that western part of England, and settle in the East ; 
and that Guthrum should become a Christian, in remembrance 
of the divine religion which now taught his conqueror, the noble 
Alfred, to forgive the enemy who had so often injured him» 
This Guthrum did. At his baptism. King Alfred was his god- 
father. And Guthrum was an honorable chief, who well deserved 
that clemency ; for ever afterwards he was loyal and faithful to 
the king. The Danes under him were faithful too. They 
plundered and burned no more, but worked like honest men. 
They ploughed and sowed and reaped, and led good, honest 
English lives. And 1 hope the children of those Danes played 
many a time with Saxon chUdren in the sunny fields ; and that 
Danish young men fell in love with Saxon girls, and married 
them ; and that English travellers, benighted at the doors ol 



f 9 A CtrtLD'S msTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Danish cottages, often went in for shelter until morning ; and 
that Danes and Saxons sat by the red fire, friends, talking of 
King Alfred the Great. 

AH the Danes were not like these under Guthrum ; for, after 
some years,more of them came over in the old plundering and burn- 
ing way, — among them a fierce pirate of the name of Hastings, 
Iwho had the boldness to sail up the Thames to Gravesend with 
weighty ships. For three years there was a war with these Danes \ 
rand there was a famine in the country, too, and a plague, both 
lupon human creatures and beasts. But King Alfred, whose 
\mighty heart never failed Jiim, built large ships, nevertheless, 
Iwith which to pursue the pirates on the sea ; and he encouraged 
this soldiers, by his brave example, to fight valiantly against them 
von the shore. At last he drove them all away ; apd then there 
fwas repose in England. 

t As great and good in peace as he was great and good in 
war, King Alfred never rested from his labors to improve his 
: people. He loved to talk with clever men, and with travellers 
" from foreign countries, and to write down what they told him, 
for his people to read. He had studied Latin after learning to 
read English ; and now another of his labors was, to translate 
; Latin books into the English-Saxon tongue, that his people might 
be. interested and improved by their contents. He made just 
laws, that they might live more happily and freely ; he turned 
away all partial judges, that no wrong might be done them ; 
he was so careful of their property, and punished robbers so 
severely, that it was a common thing to say, that, under the 
great King Alfred, garlands of golden chains and jewels might 
have hung across the streets, and no man would have touched 
one. He founded schools ; he patiently heard causes himself 
in his court of justice. The great desires of his heart were, to 
do right to all his subjects, and to leave England better, wiser, 
happier in all ways, than he found it. His industry in these 
efforts was quite astonishing. Every day he divided into 
certain portions, and in each portion devoted himself to a 
certain pursuit. That he might divide his time exactly, he had 
wax torches or candles made, which were all of the same size, 
were notched across at regular distances, and were always kept 
burning. Thus, as the candles burnt down, he divided the day 
into notches, almost as accurately as we now divide it into 
hours upon the clock. But when the candles '^trit first in- 
vented, it was found that the wind and draughts of air, blowing 
into the palace through the doors and windows, and through 
the chinks in the walls, caused them to gutter and burn un- 



ENGLAND UNDER TItE GOOD SAXoN, ALFRED. // / 



equally. To prevent this, the king had them put into cr t^ ,' 
formed of wood and white horn. And these were thei K.. 
lanterns ever made in England. [^ 'i' > 

All this time he was afflicted with a terrible, unknowrt| [ 
ease, which caused him violent and frequent pain that not! ' - 
could relieve. He bore it, as he had borne all the troubles 
his life like a brave good man, until he was fifty-three y\ 
old ; and then, having reigned thirty years, he died. He d v. 
in the year 901 ; but, long ago as that is, his fame, and thl jf 
love and gratitude with which his subjects regarded him, are^. 
freshly remembered to the present hour. 

In the next reign, which was the reign of Edward, surnamed - 
The Elder, who was chosen in council to succeed, a nephew of/ 
King Alfred troubled the country by trying to obtain th< 
throne. The Danes in the east of England took part wit/^,, 
this usurper (perhaps because they had honored his undi | 
much, and honored him for his uncle's sake), and there \ ;{ 
hard fighting ; but the king, with the assistance of his s^ j 
gained the day, and reigned in peace for four-and-twenty y 
He gradually extended his power over the whole of Engl y ^ 
and so the seven kingdoms were united into one. 

When England thus became one kingdom, ruled ove 
one Saxon king, the Saxons had been settled in the count] 
more than four hundred and fifty years. Great chanefe^ ' 
taken place in its customs during that time. The Sax'' ,^ wei 
still greedy eaters and great drinkers, and their feasts we 
often of a noisy and drunken kind ; but many new comfort! 
and even elegancies, had become known, and were fast increas- 
ing. Hangings for the walls of rooms (where, in these modern 
days, we paste up paper) are known to have been sometimes 
made of silk, ornamented with birds and flowers in needlework. 
Tables and chairs were curiously carved in different woods ; 
were sometimes decorated with gold or silver ; sometimes even 
made of those precious metals. Knives and spoons were used 
at table ; golden ornaments were worn, — with silk and cloth, 
and golden tissues and embroideries; dishes were made of 
gold and silver, brass and bone. There were varieties of 
drinking-horns, bedsteads, musical instruments. A harp was 
passed round at a feast, like the drinking-bowl, from guest to 
guest ; and each one usually sang or played when his turn 
came. The weapons of the Saxons were stoutly made ; and 
among them was a terrible iron hammer that gave deadly 
blows, and was long remembered. The Saxons themselves 
were a handsome people. The men were proud of their long, 



24 A CmLD'S HISTORY OP E]^GLAMD. 

fair hair, parted on the forehead ; their ample beards ; their 
fresh complexions and clear eyes. The beauty of the Saxon 
women filled all England with a new delight and grace. 

I have more to tell of the Saxons yet ; but I stop to say 
this now, because, under the Great Alfred, all the best points 
of the English-Saxon character were first encouraged, and in 
him first shown. It has been the greatest character among 
the nations of the earth. Wherever the descendants of the 

f Saxon race have gone, have sailed, or otherwise made their 
way, even to the remotest regions of the world, they have been 
patient, persevering, never to be broken in spirit, never to be 
turned aside from enterprises on which they have resolved. 
\w Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the whole world over ; in 
\ he desert, in the forest, on the sea ; scorched by a burning 

-^iun, or frozen by ice that never melts, — the Saxon blood re- 
tnains unchanged. Wheresoever that race goes, there law and 
industry, and safety for life and property, and all the great 
results of steady perseverance, are certain to arise. 

I pause to think with admiration of the noble king, who, in 
lis single person, possessed all the Saxon virtues ; whom mis- 
fortune could not subdue, whom prosperity could not spoil, 
whose perseverance nothing could shake j who was hopeful in 
defeat, and generous in success ; who loved justice, freedom, 
truth and knowledge ; who, in his care to instruct his people, 
probably did more to preserve the beautiful old Saxon language 
than I can imagine; without whom the English tongue in 
which I tell this story might have wanted half its meaning. 
As it is said that his spirit still inspires some of our best 
English laws, so let you and I pray that it may animate our 
English hearts, at least to this, — to resolve, when we see any 
of our fellow-creatures left in ignorance, that we will do our 
best, while life is in us, to have them taught ; and to tell those 
rulers whose duty it is to teach them, and who neglect their 
duty, that they have profited very little by all the years that 
have rolled away since the year 901, and that they are far be 
hind the bright example of King Alfred the Great. 



hNGLAND UNDER ATJIELSTAiV. / '( 



I V 



CHAPTER IV. 

ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN AND THE SIX BOY-KINOS, i 1, 

Athelstan, the son of Edward the Elder, succeeded thV 
king. He reigned only fifteen years ; but he remembered the 
glory of his grandfather, the great Alfred, and governed Eng- 
land well. He reduced the turbulent people of Wales, and 
obliged them to pay him a tribute in money and in cattle, and 
to send him their best hawks and hounds. He was victorious 
over the Cornish men, who were not yet quite under the Saxoij 
government. He restored such of the old laws as were goodj 
and had fallen into disuse ; made some wise new laws and tool' 
care of the poor and weak. A strong alliance, made against 
him by Anlaf, a Danish prince, Constantine King of the Scots^ 
and the people of North Wales, he broke and defeated in on^ 
great battle, long famous for the vast numbers slain in * 
After that he had a quiet reign ; the lords and ladies ab(l 
iiim had leisure to become polite and agreeable ; and foreii 
princes were glad (as they have sometimes been since) to con 
to England on visits to the English court. \ 

When Athelstan died, at forty seven years old, his broth^ 
Edmund, who was only eighteen, became king. He was this 
first of six boy-kings, as you will presently know. 

They called him the Magnificent, because he showed a taste 
for improvement and refinement. But he was beset by the 
Danes, and had a short and troubled reign, which came to a 
troubled end. One night, when he was feasting in his hall, and 
had eaten much and drunk deep, he saw among the company a 
noted robber named Leof, who had been banished from Eng- 
land. Made very angry by the boldness of this man, the king 
turned to his cup bearer, and said : " There is a robber sitting 
at the table yonder, who, for his crimes, is an outlaw in the land, 
— a hunted wolf, whose life any man may take, at any time. 
Command that robber to depart ! " I will not depart ! " said 
Leof. " No ? " cried the king. " No, by the Lord ! " said Leof. 
Upon that the king rose from his seat, and, making passionately 
at the robber, and seizing him by his long hair, tried to throw 
him down. But the robber had a dagger underneath his 
cloak, and in the scuffle stabbed the king to death. That done, 
he set his back against the wall, and fought so desperately, that, 



26 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

although he was soon cut to pieces by the king's armed men, 
and the wall and pavement were splashed with his blood, yet 
it was not before he had killed and wounded many of them. 
You may imagine what rough lives the kings of those times led, 
when one of them could struggle, half drunk, with a public 
robber in his own dining-hall, and be stabbed in presence of 
he company who ate and drank with him. 

Then succeeded the boy-king Edred, who was weak and 
sickly in body, but of a strong mind. And his armies fought 
the Northmen, — the Danes and Norwegians, or the Sea-Kings, 
as they were called, — and beat them for the time. And in 
nine years Edred died, and passed away. 

Then came the boy-king Edwy, fifteen years of age ; but 
i^he real king, who had the real power, was a monk named 
jDunstan, — a clever priest, a little mad, and not a little proud 
iand cruel. 

Dunstan was then Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, whither 
the body of king Edmund the Magnificent was carried to be 
buried. While yet a boy, he had got out of his bed one night 
(being then in a fever), and walked about Glastonbury Church 
when it was under repair ; and because he did not tumble off 
some scaffolds that were there, and break his neck, it was re- 
ported that he had been shown over the building by an angel. 
He had also made a harp that was said to play of itself; which 
it very likely did, as ^olian harps, which are played by the 
wind, and are understood now, always do. For these wonders he 
had been once denounced by his enemies, who were jealous of 
his favor with the late King Athelstan, as a magician ; and he 
had been waylaid, bound hand and foot, and thrown into a 
marsh. But he got out again, somehow, to cause a great deal 
of trouble yet. 

The priests of those days were generally the only scholars. 
They were learned in many things. Having to make their own 
convents and monasteries on uncultivated grounds that were 
granted to them by the crown, it was necessary that they should 
be good farmers and good gardeners, or their lands would have 
been too poor to support them. For the decoration of the 
chapels where they prayed, and for the comfort of the refecto- 
ries where they ate and drank, it was necessary that there should 
be good carpenters, good smiths, good painters, among them. 
For their greater safety in sickness and accident, living alone 
by themselves in solitary places, it was necessary that they 
should study the virtues of plants and herbs, and should know 
how to dress cuts, burns, scalds, and bruises, and how to t^t 



ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN. / '! 

broken limbs. Accordingly, they taught themselves and oj ^ 
another a great variety of useful arts, and became skilful p 
agriculture, medicine, surgery, and handicraft. And when tn-, A 
wanted the aid of any little piece of machinery, — which woii | 
be simple enough now, but was marvellous then, — to impose \ 
trick upon the poor peasants, they knew very well how to mal j 
it ; and did make it many a time and often, I have no doubt. >^ 

Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, was one of the most^ 
sagacious of these monks. He was an ingenious smith, and 
worked at a forge in a little cell. This cell was made too short 
to admit of his lying at full length when he went to sleep ; ( as 
if that did any good to anybody ! ) and he used to tell the most 
extraordinary lies about demons and spirits, who, he said, came 
there to persecute him. For instance, he related, that, one day 
when he was at work, the Devil looked in at the little window, 
and tried to tempt him to lead a life of idle pleasure ; where- 
upon, having his pincers in the fire, red-hot, he seized the Devil 
by the nose, and put him to such pain, that his bellowings were 
heard for miles and miles. Some people are inclined to think 
this nonsense a part of Dunstan's madness (for his head never 
quite recovered the fever) ; but I think not. I observe that it 
induced the ignorant people to consider him a holy man, and 
that it made him very powerful ; which was exactly what he 
always wanted. 

On the day of the coronation of the handsome boy-king 
Edwy, it was remarked by Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury (who 
was a Dane by birth), that the king quietly left the coronation- 
feast, while all the company were there. Odo, much displeased, 
sent his friend Dunstan to seek him. Dunstan, finding him in 
the company of his beautiful young wife Elgiva, and her mother 
Ethelgiva, a good and virtuous lady, not only grossly abused 
them, but dragged the young king back into the feasting-hall 
by force. Some, again, think Dunstan did this because the 
young king's fair wife was his own cousin ; and the monks 
objected to people marrying their own cousins ; but I believe 
he did it because he was an imperious, audacious, ill-condi- 
tioned priest, who, having loved a young lady himself before he 
became a sour monk, hated all love now, and everything be- 
longing to it. 

The young king was quite old enough to feel this insult. 
Dunstan had been treasurer in the last reign ; and he soon 
charged Dunstan with having taken some of the last king's 
money. The Glastonbury abbot fled to Belgium (very narrowly 
escaping some pursuers who were sent to put out his eyes, as 



jj8 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

you will wish they had, when you read what follows), and his 
abbey was given to priests who were married ; whom he always, 
both before and afterwards, opposed. But he quickly conspired 
with his friend Odo, the Dane, to set up the king's young 
brother Edgar, as his rival for the throne ; and, not content 
with this revenge, he caused the beautiful queen Elgiva, though 
a lovely girl of only seventeen or eighteen, to be stolen from 
one of the royal palaces, branded in the cheek with a red-hot 
iron, and sold into slavery in Ireland. But the Irish people 
pitied and befriended her ; and they said, " Let us restore the 
girl-queen to the boy-king, and make the young lovers happy ! '* 
And they cured her of her cruel wound, and sent her home as 
beautiful as before. But the villain, Dunstan, and that other 
villain, Odo, caused her to be waylaid at Gloucester as she was 
joyfully hurrying to join her husband, and to be hacked and 
newn with swords, and to be barbarously maimed and lamed, 
and left to die. When Edwy the Fair (his people called him 
so because he was so young and handsome) heard of her dread- 
ful fate, he died of a broken heart ; and so the pitiful story of 
the poor young wife and husband ends. Ah ! Better to be two 
cottagers in these better times, than king and queen of England 
in those bad days, though never so fair ! 

Then came the boy-king Edgar, called the Peaceful, fifteen 
years old. Dunstan, being still the real king, drove all married 
priests out of the monasteries and abbeys, and replaced them by 
solitary monks like himself, of the rigid order called the Bene- 
dictines. He made himself Archbishop of Canterbury for his 
greater glory ; and exercised such power over the neighboring 
British princes, and so collected them about the king, that once, 
when the king held his court at Chester, and went on the River 
Dee to visit the monastery of St. John, the eight oars of his boat 
were pulled (as the people used to delight in relating in stories 
and songs) by eight crowned kings, and steered by the king of 
England. As Edgar was very obedient to Dunstan and the 
monks, they took great pains to represent him as the best of 
kings ; but he was really profligate, debauched, and vicious. 
He once forcibly carried off a young lady from the convent at 
Wilton ; and Dunstan, pretending to be very much shocked, 
condemned him not to wear his crown upon his head for seven 
years, — no great punishment, I dare say, as it can hardly have 
been a more comfortable ornament to wear than a stewpan with- 
out a handle. His marriage with his second wife, Elfrida, is 
one of the worst events of his reign. Hearing of the beauty of 
this lady, he despatched his favorite courtier, Athelwold, to her 



ENGLAND UNDER Al^HELSTAN 4 

father's castle, in Devonshire, to see if she were really i^ 
charming as fame reported. Now she was so exceedinglv r 
beautiful, that Athelwold fell in love with her himself, an^ 
married her ; but he told the king that she was only rich, no' 
handsome. The king, suspecting the truth when they camtj 
home, resolved to pay the newly married couple a visit ; and 
suddenly told Athelwold to prepare for his immediate coming.S, 
Athelwold, terrified, confessed to his young wife what he had 
said and done, and implored her to disguise her beauty by some 
ugly dress or silly manner, that he might be safe from the king's 
anger. She promised that she would ; but she was a proud 
woman, who would far rather have been a queen than the wife 
of a courtier. She dressed herself in her best dress, and 
adorned herself with her richest jewels ; and when the king 
came presently, he discovered the cheat. So he caused his 
false friend Athelwold to be murdered in a wood, and married 
his widow, this bad Elfrida. Six or seven years afterwards he 
died, and was buried (as if he had been all that the monks said 
he was) in the abbey of Glastonbury, which he — or Dunstan 
ior him — had much enriched. 

England, in one part of this reign, was so troubled by 
wolves, which, driven out of the open country, hid themselves 
in the mountains of Wales, when they were' not attacking 
travellers and animals, that the tribute payable by the Welsh 
people was forgiven them, on condition of their producing every 
year, three hundred wolves' heads. And the Welshmen were 
GO sharp upon the wolves, to save their mone}., that in four 
years there was not a wolf left. 

Then came the boy-king Edward, called the Martyr, from 
the manner of his death. Elfrida had a son, named Ethelred, 
for whom she claimed the throne ; but Dunstan did not choose 
to favor him, and he made Edward king. The boy was hunt- 
ing one day down in Dorsetshire, when he rode near to Corfe 
Castle, where Elfrida and Ethelred lived. Wishing to see them, 
kindly, he rode away from his attendants, and galloped to the 
castle-gate, where he arrived at twilight, and blew his hunting- 
horn. " You are welcome, dear king," said Elfrida, coming 
out, with her brightest smiles. " Pray you dismount and enter." 
" Not so, dear madam," said the king. " My company will 
miss me, and fear that I have met with some harm. Please 
you to give me a cup of wine, that I may drink here in the 
saddle to you and to my little brother, and so ride away with 
the good speed I have made in riding here." Elfrida, going in 
to bring the wine, whispered to an armed servant, one of h^| 



3® 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



attendants, who stole out of the darkening gateway, and crept 
round behind the king's horse. As the king raised the cup to 
bis lips, saying " Health ! " to the wicked woman who was 
smiling on him, and to his innocent brother whose hand she 
held in hers, and who was only ten years old, this armed man 
made a spring, and stabbed him in the back. He dropped the 
cup, and spurred his horse away ; but soon, fainting with loss 
of blood, dropped from the saddle, and, in his fall, entangled 
one of his feet in the stirrup. The frightened horse dashed on, 
trailing his rider's curls upon the ground, dragging his smooth 
young face through ruts, and stones, and briers, and fallen 
leaves, and mud ; until the hunters, tracking the animal's 
course by the king's blood, caught his bridle, and released the 
disfigured body. 

Then came the sixth and last of the boy-kings, Ethelred ; 
whom Elfrida, when he cried out at the sight of his murdered 
brother riding away from the castle-gate, unmercifully beat with 
a torch which she snatched from one of the attendants. The 
people so disliked this boy, on account of his cruel mother, and 
the murder she had done to promote him, that Dunstan would 
not have had him for king ; but would have made Edgitha, the 
daughter of the dead king Edgar and of the lady whom he stole 
out of the convent at Wilton, queen of England, if she would 
jave consented. But she knew the stories of the youthful 
dngs too well, and would not be persuaded from the convent 
where she lived in peace ; so Dunstan put Ethelred on the 
throne, having no one else to put there, and gave him the nick- 
name of " The Unready," knowing that he wanted resolution 
and firmness. At first Elfrida possessed great influence over 
the young king ; but as he grew older, and came of age, her 
influence declined. The infamous woman, not having it in her 
power to d(? any more evil, then retired from court, and 
according to the fashion of the time, built, churches and mon- 
asteries to expiate her guilt. As if a church with a steeple 
reaching to the very stars would have been any sign of true re- 
pentance for the blood of the poor boy whose murdered form 
was trailed at his horse's heels ! As if she could have buried 
her wickedness beneath the senseless stones of the whole world 
piled up one upon another for the monks to live in ! 

About the ninth or tenth year of this reign, Dunstan died. 
He was growing old then, but was as stern and artful as ever. 
Two circumstances that happened in connection with him, in 
this reign of Ethelred, made a great noise. Once he was pres- 
ent at a meeting of th§ Church, when the (question was dis 



ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN 



31 



cussed whether priests should have permission to marry ; and 
as he sat with his head hung down, apparently thinking about 
it, a voice seemed to come out of a crucifix in the room, and 
warn the meeting to be of his opinion. This was some juggling 
of Dunstan's, and was probably his own voice disguised. But 
he played off a worse juggle than that soon afterwards ; foi 
another meeting being held on the same subject, and he and 
his supporters being seated on one side of a great room, and 
their opponents on the other, he rose and said, " To Christ 
himself, as Judge, do I commit this cause ! " Immediately on 
these words being spoken, the floor where the opposite party 
sat gave way ; and some were killed, and many wounded* You 
may be pretty sure that it had been weakened under Dunstan's 
direction, and that it fell at Dunstan's signal. His part of the 
floor did not go down. No, no ! He was too good a workman 
for that. 

When he died, the monks settled that he was a saint, and 
called him St. Dunstan ever afterwards. They might just as 
well have settled that he was a coach-horse, and could just as 
easily have called him one. 

Ethelred the Unready was glad enough, I dare say, to be 
riH of this holy saint \ but, left to himself, he was a poor, weak 
king, and his reign was a reign of defeat and shame. The 
restless Danes, led by Sweyn, a son of the king of Denmark, 
who had quarrelled with his father, and had been banished from 
home, again came into England, and year after year attacked 
and despoiled large towns. To coax these sea-kings away, the 
weak Ethelred paid them money ; but the more money he paid, 
the more money the Danes wanted. At first he gave them ten 
thousand pounds ; on their next invasion, sixteen thousand 
pounds ; on their next invasion, four-and-twenty thousand 
pounds j to pay which large sums, the unfortunate English 
people were heavily taxed. But as the Danes still came back 
and wanted more, he thought it would be a good plan to marry 
into some powerful foreign family that would help him with 
soldiers. So in the year 1002, he courted and married Emma, 
the sister of Richard, Duke of Normandy, — a lady who was 
called the Flower of Normandy. 

And now a terrible deed was done in England, the like of 
which was never done on English ground before or since. On 
the 13th of November, in pursuance of secret instructions sent 
by the king over the whole country, the inhabitants of every 
town and city armed, and murdered all the Danes who were 
their neighbors. Young and old, babies and soldiers, men and 



|2 A CHILD'S MISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

women, — every Dane was killed. No doubt there were among 
them many ferocious men, who had done the English great 
wrong, and whose pride and insolence, in swaggering in the 
houses of the English, and insulting their wives and daughters, 
had become unbearable ; but, no doubt, there were also among 
them many peaceful Christian Danes, who had married English 
women, and become like English men. They were all slain, 
even to Gunhilda, the sister of the King of Denmark, married 
to an English lord ; who was first obliged to see the murder of 
her husband and her child, and then was killed herself. 

When the king of the sea-kings heard of this deed of blood, 
he swore that he would have a great revenge. He raised an 
army, and a mightier fleet of ships than ever yet had sailed to 
England. And in all his army there was not a slave nor an old 
man ; but every soldier was a free man, and the son of a free 
man, and in the prime of life, and sworn to be revenged upon 
the English nation, for the massacre of that dread 13th of No- 
vember, when his countrymen and countrywomen, and the 
little children whom they loved, were killed by fire and sword. 
And so the sea-kings came to England in many great ships, 
each bearing the flag of its own commander. Golden eagles, 
ravens, dragons, dolphins, beasts of prey, threatened England 
from the prows of those ships, as they came onward through 
the water ; and were reflected in the shining shields that hung 
upon their sides. The ship that bore the standard of the king 
of the sea-kings was carved and painted like a mighty serpent \ 
and the king, in his anger, prayed that the gods in whom he 
trusted might all desert him, if his serpent did not strike its 
fangs into England's heart. 

And indeed it did. For the great army, landing from 
the great fleet near Exeter, went forward, laying England waste, 
and striking their lances in the earth as they advanced, or 
throwing them into rivers, in token of their making all the 
island theirs. In remembrance of the Black November night 
when the Danes were murdered, wheresoever the invaders 
came, they made the Saxons prepare and spread for them great 
feasts ; and when they had eaten those feasts, and had drunk 
a curse to England with wild rejoicings, they drew their swords, 
and killed their Saxon entertainers, and marched on. For six 
long years they carried on this war ; burning the crops, farm- 
houses, barns, mills, granaries ; killing the laborers in the 
fields ; preventing the seed from being sown in the ground ; 
causing famine and starvation ; leaving only heaps of ruin and 
smoking ashes, where they ha4 found rich towns. To crown 



ENGLAND UNDER ATHELSTAN. 33 

this misery, English officers and men deserted ; and even the 
favorites of Ethelred the Unready, becoming traitors, seized 
many of the English ships, turned pirates against their own 
country, and aided by a storm, occasioned the loss of nearly 
the whole English navy. 

There was but one man of note, at this miserable pass, who 
was true to his country and the feeble king. He was a priest, 
and a brave one. For twenty days the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury defended that city against its Danish besiegers ; and when 
a traitor in the town threw the gates open, and admitted them, 
he said, in chains, " I will not buy my life with money that 
must be extx)rted from the suffering people. Do with me what 
you please ! " Again and again, he steadily refused to pur- 
chase his release with gold wrung from the poor. 

At last the Danes, being tired of this, and being assembled 
at a drunken merry-making, had him brought into the feasting 
hall. 

" Now, bishop," they said, " we want gold." 

He looked round on the crowd of angry faces, — ^from the 
shaggy beards close to him, to the shaggy beards against the 
walls, where men were mounted on tables and forms to see 
him over the heads of others, — and he knew that his time was 
come. 

" I have no gold," said he. 

" Get it, bishop ! " they all thundered. 

" That I have often told you I will not," said he. 

They gathered closer round him, threatening ; but he stood 
unmoved. Then one man struck him ; then another ; then 
a cursing soldier picked up from a heap in the corner of the 
hall, where fragments had been rudely thrown at dinner, a 
great ox-bone, and cast it at his face, from which the blood 
came spurting forth ; then others ran to the same heap, and 
knocked him down with other bones, and bruised and battered 
him ; until one soldier whom he baptized (willing, as I hope 
for the sake of that soldier's soul, to shorten the sufferings of 
the good man) struck him dead with his battle-axe. 

If Ethelred had had the heart to emulate the courage of 
this noble Archbishop, he might have done something yet. 
But he paid the Danes forty-eight thousand pounds, instead ; 
and gained so little by the cowardly act, that Sweyn soon 
afterwards came over to subdue all England. So broken was 
the attachment of the English people by this time, to their in^ 
capable King and their forlorn country, which could not pro- 
tect them, that they welcomed Sweyn on all sides as a deliv 



34 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

erer. London faithfully stood out as long as the king was 
within its walls ; but when he sneaked away, it also welcomed 
the Dane. Then all was over; and the king took refuge 
abroad with the Duke of Normandy, who had already given 
shelter to the king's wife (once the flower of that country), 
and to her children. 

Still the English people, in spite of their sad sufferings, 
could not quite forget the great king Alfred and the Saxon 
race. When Sweyn died suddenly, in little more than a month 
after he had been proclaimed king of England, they generously 
sent to Ethelred, to say that they would have him for their 
king again, " if he would only govern them better than he had 
governed them before." The Unready, instead of coming him- 
self, sent Edward, one of his sons, to make promises for him. 
At last he followed, and the English declared him king. The 
Danes declared Canute, the son of Sweyn, king. Thus direful 
war began again, and lasted for three years ; when the Un- 
ready died. And I know of nothing better that he did in all 
his reign of eight-and-thirty years. 

Was Canute to be king now ? Not over the Saxons, they 
said : they must have Edmund, one of the sons of the Unready, 
whr was surnamed Ironside because of his strength and stature. 
Edmund and Canute thereupon fell to, and fought five battles. 
O unhappy England ! what a fighting-ground it was ! And 
then Ironside, who was a big man, proposed to Canute, who 
was a little man, that they two should fight it out in single 
combat. If Canute had been the big man, he would probably 
have said yes ; but^ being the little man, he decidedly said no. 
However, he declared that he was willing to divide the king- 
dom, — to take all that lay north of Watling Street, as the old 
Roman military road from Dover to Chester was called, and 
to give Ironside all that lay south of it. Most men being weary 
of so much bloodshed, this was done. But Canute soon be- 
came sole king of England ; for Ironside died suddenly within 
two months. Some think that he was killed, and Icilled by 
Canute's orders. No one knows. 



ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE. ^ 

CHAPTER V, 

ENGLAND UNDER CANUTE THE DANE. 

Canute reigned eighteen years. He was a merciless king 
at first. After he had clasped the hands of the Saxon chiefs, 
in token of the sincerity with which he swore to be just and 
good to them in return for their acknowledging him, he de- 
nounced and slew many of them, as well as many relations of 
the late king. " He who brings me the head of one of my ene- 
mies," he used to say, " shall be dearer to me than a brother." 
And he was so severe in hunting down his enemies, that he 
must have got together a pretty large family of these dear 
brothers. He was strongly inclined to kill Edmund and Ed- 
ward, two children, sons of poor Ironside ; but, being afraid to 
do so in England, he sent them over to the king of Sweden, 
with a request that the king would be so good as to " dispose 
of them." If the king of Sweden had been like many, many 
other men of that day, he would have had their innocent throats 
cut J but he was a kind man, and brought them up tenderly. 

Normandy ran much in Canute's mind. In Normandy were 
the two children of the late king, — Edward and Alfred by name ; 
and their uncle, the duke, might one day claim the crown for 
them. But the duke showed so little inclination to do so now, 
that he proposed to Canute to marry his sister, the widow of 
the Unready ; who, being but a showy flower, and caring for 
nothing so much as becoming a queen again, left her children, 
and was wedded to him. 

Successful and triumphant, assisted by the valor of the Eng- 
iish in his foreign wars, and with little strife to trouble him at 
home, Canute had a prosperous reign, and made many improve- 
ments. He was a poet and a musician. He grew sorry as he 
grew older, for the blood he had shed at first ; and went to 
Rome in a pilgrim's dress, by way of washing it out. He gave 
a great deal of money to foreigners on his journey ; but he took 
it from the English before he started. On the whole, however, 
he certainly became a far better man when he had no opposi- 
tion to contend with ; and was as great a king as England had 
known for some time. 

The old writers of history relate how that Canute was one 
day disgusted with his courtiers for their flattery ; and how he 



36 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGI AN'b. 

caused his chair to be set on the sea-shore, and feigned to ctf/n* 
mand the tide as it came up not to wet the edge of his robe, foi 
the land was his ; how the tide came up, of course, without re- 
garding him j and how he then turned to his flatterers, and re* 
buked them, saying, what was the might of any earthly king 
to the might of the Creator, who could say unto the sea, " Thus 
far shalt thou go, and no farther ! " We may learn from this, I 
think, that a little sense will go a long way in a king : and that 
courtiers are not easily cured of flattery, nor kings of a liking 
for it. If the courtiers of Canute had not known, long before, 
that the king was fond of flattery, they would have known bet- 
ter than to offer it in such large doses. And if they had not 
known that he was vain of this speech, (anything but a wonder- 
ful speech, it seems to me, if a good child had made it), they 
would not have been at such great pains to repeat it. I fancy 
I see them all on the sea-shore together ; the king's chair sink- 
ing in the sand ; the king in a mighty good-humor with his own 
wisdom ; and the courtiers pretending to be quite stunned by 
it! 

It is not the sea alone that is bidden to go "thus far, and 
no farther." The great command goes forth to all the kings 
upon the earth; and went to Canute in the year 1035, and 
stretched him dead upon his bed. Beside it stood his Norman 
wife. Perhaps, as the king looked his last upon her, he, who 
had so often thought distrustfully of Normandy long ago, 
thought once more of the two exiled princes in their uncle's 
court, and of the little favor they could feel for either Danes or 
Saxons ; and of a rising cloud in Normandy that slowly moved 
towards England. 



CHAPTER VI. 

itNGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANtTTE. A 
WARD THE CONFESSOR. 

Canute left three sons, by name Sweyn, Harold, and Hardi-^ 
Canute ; but his queen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, 
was the mother of only Hardicanute. Canute had wished his 
dominions to be divided between the three, and had wished 
Harold to have England ; but the Saxon people in the south ^\ 



ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, ETC. 37 

England, headed by a nobleman with great possessions, called 
the powerful Earl Godwin (who is said to have been originally 
a poor cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to have, instead, 
either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled princes who were 
over in Normandy. It seemed so certain that there would be 
more blood shed to settle this dispute, that many people left 
their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps. Hap- 
pily, however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a 
great meeting at Oxford, which decided that Harold should 
have all the country north of the Thames, with London for his 
capital city, and that Hardicanute should have all the south. 
The quarrel was so arranged ; and as Hardicanute was in Den- 
mark, troubling himself very little about anything but eating, 
and getting drunk, his mother and Earl Godwin governed the 
south for him. 

They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people 
who had hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when 
Edward, the elder of the two exiled princes, came over from 
Normandy with a few followers, to claim the English crown. 
His mother Emma, however, who only cared for her last son 
Hardicanute, instead of assisting him, as he expected, opposed 
him so strongly with all her influence, that he was very soon 
glad to get safely back. His brother Alfred was not so fortu- 
nate.. Believing in an affectionate letter, written some time 
afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's name (but 
whether really with or without his mother's knowledge is now un- 
certain), he allowed himself to be tempted over to England, with 
a good force of soldiers j and landing on the Kentish coast, and 
being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Sur- 
rey, as far as the town of Guildford. Here he and his men 
halted in the evening to rest, having still the earl in their com- 
pany j who had ordered lodgings and good cheer for them. 
But in the dead of the night, when they were off their guard, 
being divided into small parties, sleeping soundly after a long 
march and a plentiful supper, in different houses, they were set 
upon by the king's troops, and taken prisoners. Next morning 
they were drawn out in a line, to the number of six hundred 
men, and were barbarously tortured and killed, with the excep- 
tion of every tenth man, who was sold into slavery. As to the 
wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped naked, tied to a horse, 
and sent away into the Isle of Ely, where his eyes were torn 
put of his head, and where in a few days he miserably died. I 
am not sure that the earl had wilfully entrapped him, but I sus- 
pect it strongly. 



38 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Harold was now king all over England; though it is doubt 
ful whether the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of 
the priests were Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever 
consented to crown him. Crowned or uncrowned, with the 
Archbishop's leave or without it, he was king for four years ^ 
after which short reign he died and was buried, having never 
done much in life but go a-hunting. He was such a fast run- 
ner at this, his favorite sport, that the people called him Harold 
Harefoot. 

Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Flanders, plotting with 
his mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder of 
Prince Alfred) for the invasion of England. The Danes and 
Saxons, finding themselves without a king, and dreading new 
disputes, made common cause, and joined in inviting him to 
occupy the throne. He consented, and soon troubled them 
enough ; for he brought over numbers of Danes, and taxed the 
people so insupportably to enrich those greedy favorites, that 
there were many insurrections, especially one at Worcester, 
where the citizens rose, and killed his tax-collectors ; in revenge 
for which he burned their city. He was a brutal king, whose 
first public act was to order the dead body of poor Harold 
Harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the river. 
His end was worthy of such a beginning. He fell down drunk, 
with a goblet of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast at Lam- 
beth, given in honor of the marriage of his standard-bearer, a 
Dane named Towed the Proud. And he never spoke again. 

Edward, afterwards called by the monks. The Confessor, 
succeeded ; and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, 
who had favored him so little, to retire into the country, where: 
she died, some ten years afterwards. He was the exiled prince; 
whose brother Alfred had been so foully killed. He had been 
invited over from Normandy by Hardicanute, in the course of 
his short reign of two years, and had been handsomely treated 
at court. His cause was now favored by the powerful Earl 
Godwin, and he was soon made king. This earl had been sus- 
pected by the people, ever since Prince Alfred's cruel death : 
he had even been tried in the last reign for the prince's murder, . 
but had been pronounced not guilty ; chiefly, as it was supposed,* 
because of a present he had made to the swinish king, of a; 
gilded ship with a figure-head of solid gold, and a crew of eighty 
splendidly armed men. It was his interest to help the new king 
with his power, if the new king would help him against the 
popular distrust and hatred. So they made a bargain. Edward,' 
the Confessor got the throne , The earl got more power and 



ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, ETC. 



39 



more land, and his daughter Editha was made queen ; for it 
was a part of their compact, that the king should take her for 
his wife. 

But although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to 
be beloved, — good, beautiful, sensible, and kind, — the king 
from the first neglected her. Her father and her six proud 
brothers, resenting this cold treatment, harassed the king greatly, 
by exerting all their power to make him unpopular. Having 
lived so long in Normandy, he preferred the Normans to the 
English. He made a Norman archbishop, and Norman 
bishops ; his great officers and favorites were all Normans ; he 
introduced the Norman fashions and the Norman language ; in 
imitation of the state custom of Normandy, he attached a great 
seal to his state documents, instead of merely marking them, 
as the Saxon kings had done, with the sign of the cross, — ^just 
as poor people who have never been taught to write now make 
the same mark for their names. All this, the powerful Earl 
Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the people as 
disfavor shown towards the English ; and thus they daily in- 
creased their own power, and daily diminished the power of the 
king. 

They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when 
he had reigned eight years. Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, who 
had married the king's sister, came to England on a visit, 
/fter staying at the court some time, he set forth, with his 
numerous train of attendants, to return home. They were to 
embark at Dover. Entering that peaceful town in armor, they 
took possession of the best houses, and noisily demanded to be 
lodged and entertained without payment. One of the bold 
men of Dover, who would not endure to have these domineer- 
ing strangers jingling their heavy swords and iron corselets up 
and down his house, eating his meat and drinking his strong 
liquor, stood in his doorway, and refused admission to the first 
armed man who came there. The armed man drew and wounded 
him. The man of Dover struck the armed man dead. Intelli- 
gence of what he had done spreading through the streets to 
where the Count Eustace and his men were standing by their 
horses, bridle in hand, they passionately mounted, galloped to 
the house, surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors and 
windows being closed when they came up) and killed the man 
of Dover at his own fireside. They then clattered through the 
streets, cutting down and riding over men, women, and chil- 
dren. This did not last long, you may believe. The men of 
pover set upon - them with great fury, killed nineteen of the 



40 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



foreigners, wounded many more, and, blockading the road to 
the port, so that they should not embark, beat them out of the 
town by the way they had come. Hereupon Count Eustace 
rides as hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where Edward is, 
surrounded by Norman monks and Norman lords. " Justice ! " 
cries the count, " upon the men of Dover, who have set upon 
and slain my people ! " The king sends immediately for the 
powerful Earl Godwin, who happens to be near j reminds him 
that Dover is under his government ; and orders him to repair 
to Dover, and do military execution on the inhabitants. " It 
does not become you," says the proud earl in reply, " to con 
demn without a hearing those whom you have sworn to protect. 
I will not do it." ^ 

The king, therefore, summoned the earl, on^ain of banish- 
ment, and loss of his titles and property, to appear before the 
court to answer this disobedience. The earl refused to appear. 
He, his eldest son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily 
raised as many fighting-men as their utmost power could collect, 
and demanded to have Count Eustace and his followers surren- 
dered to the justice of the country. The king, in his turn, re- 
fused to give them up, and raised a strong force. After some 
treaty and delay, the troops of the great earl and his sons began 
to fall off. The earl, with a part of his family and abundance 
of treasure, sailed to Flanders ; Harold escaped to Ireland \ 
and the power of the great family was for that time gone in 
England. But the people did not forget them. 

Then Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a 
mean spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and 
sons upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending 
wife, whom all who saw her (her husband and his monks ex- 
cepted) loved. He seized rapaciously upon her fortune and hei 
jewels j and, allowing her only one attendant, confined her in a 
gloomy convent, of which a sister of his, no doubt an unpleasant 
lady after his own heart, was abbess, or jailer. 

Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his 
way, the king favored the Normans more than ever. He in- 
vited over William, Duke of Normandy, the son of that duke 
who had received him and his murdered brother long ago, and 
of a peasant girl, a tanner's daughter, with whom the duke had 
fallen in love for her beauty as he saw her washing clothes in a 
brook. William, who was a great warrior, with a passion for 
fine horses, dogs and arms, accepted the invitation ; and the 
Normans in England, finding themselves more numerous than 
ever when he arrived with his retinue, and held in still greatei 



ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD BAREFOOT, ETC. 41 

ftonor at court than before, became more and more haughty to 
wards the people, and were more and more disHked by them. 

The old Earl Godwin, though he was abroad, knew well 
how the people felt ; for, with part of the treasure he had carried 
away with him, he kept spies and agents in his pay all over 
England. Accordingly, he thought the time was come for fit- 
ting out a great expedition against the Norman-loving king. 
With it he sailed to the Isle of Wight, where he was joined by 
his son Harold, the most gallant and brave of all his family. 
And so the father and son came sailing up the Thames to 
Southwark, great numbers of the people declaring for them, 
and shouting for the English earl and the English Harold, 
against the Norman favorites ! 

The king was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usu- 
ally have been whensoever they have been in the hands of 
monks. But the people rallied so thickly round the old earl 
and his son, and the old earl was so steady in demanding, with- 
out bloodshed, the restoration of himself and his family to their 
rights, that at last the court took the alarm. The Norman 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Norman Bishop of London, 
surrounded by their retainers, fought their way out of London, 
and escaped from Essex to France in a fishing-boat. The other 
Norman favorites dispersed in all directions. The old earl and 
his sons (except Sweyn), who had committed crimes against 
the law, were restored to their possessions and dignities. 
Editha, the virtuous and lovely queen of the insensible king, 
was triumphantly released from her prison, the convent, and 
once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed in the jewels of 
which, when she had no champion to support her rights, her 
cold-blooded husband had deprived her. 

The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored for- 
tune. He fell down in a fit at the king's table, and died upon 
the third day afterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and 
to a far higher place in the attachment of the people, than his 
father had ever held. By his valor he subdued the king's ene- 
mies in many bloody fights. He was vigorous against rebels 
in Scotland, — this was the time when Macbeth slew Duncan, 
upon which event our English Shakespeare, hundreds of years 
afterwards, wrote his great tragedy ; and he killed the restless 
Welsh King Griffith, and brought his head to England. 

What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the 
French coast by a tempest, is not at all certain ; nor does it at 
all matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that shore, 
and that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In thos«? 



43 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

barbarous days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken prisonerSj 
and obliged to pay ransom. So a certain Count Guy, who was 
the lord of Ponthieu, where Harold's disaster happened, seized 
him, instead of relieving him like a hospitable and Christian 
lord, as he ought to have done, and expected to make a very 
good thing of it. 

But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Nor- 
mandy, complaining of this treatment ; and the duke no sooner 
heard of it than he ordered Harold to be escorted to the an 
cient town of Rouen, where he then was, and where he received 
him as an honored guest. Now some writers tell us that Ed- 
ward the Confessor, who was by this time old and had no chil- 
dren, had made a will, appointing Duke William of Normandy 
his successor, and had informed the duke of his having done 
so. There is no doubt that he was anxious about his succes- 
sor j because he had even invited over, from abroad, Edward 
the Outlaw, a son of Ironside, who had come to England with 
his wife and three children ; but whom the king had strangely 
refused to see when he did come, and who had died in London 
suddenly (princes were terribly liable to sudden death in those 
days), and had been buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. The king 
might possibly have made such a will ; or, having always been 
fond of the Normans, he might have encouraged Norman Wil- 
liam to aspire to the English crown, by something that he said 
to him when he was staying at the English court. But cer- 
tainly William did now aspire to it ; and, knowing that Harold 
would be a powerful rival, he called together a great assembly 
of his nobles, offered Harold his daughter Adele in marriage, 
informed him that he meant, on King Edward's death, to claim 
the English crown as his own inheritance, and required Harold 
then and there to swear to aid him. Harold, being in the 
duke's power, took this oath upon the missal, or prayer-book. 
It is a good example of the superstitions of the monks, that this 
missal, instead of being placed upon a table, was placed upon 
a tub; which, when Harold had sworn, was uncovered, and 
shown to be full of dead men's bones, — bones, — as the monks 
pretended, of saints. This was supposed to make Harold's 
oath a great deal more impressive and binding. As if the great 
name of the Creator of heaven and earth could be made more 
solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, or a finger-nail of 
Dunstan ! 

Within a week or two after Harold's return to England, the 
dreary old Confessor was found to be dying. After wandering 
in his mind like a very weak old man, he died. As he had put 



ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND. 



4S 



himself entirely in the hands of the monks when he was alive, 
they praised him lustily when he was dead. They had gone 
so far already, as to persuade him that he could work miracles ; 
and had brought people afflicted with a bad disorder of the 
skin to him, to be touched and cured. This was called " touch- 
ing for the king's evil," which afterwards became a royal cus- 
tom. You know, however, who really touched the sick, and 
healed them ; and you know His sacred name is not among the 
dusty line of human kings. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND, AND CONQUERED BY 
THE NORMANS. 

Harold was crowned king of England on the very day of 
the maudlin £!onfessor's funeral. He had good need to be 
quick about it. When the news reached Norman William, 
hunting in his park at Rouen, he dropped his bow, returned "to 
his palace, called his nobles to council, and presently sent am- 
bassadors to Harold, calling on him to keep his oath, and re- 
sign the crown. Harold would do no such thing. The barons 
of France leagued together round Duke William for the inva- 
sion of England. Duke William promised freely to distribute 
English wealth and English lands among them. The Pope 
sent to Normandy a consecrated banner, and a ring containing 
a hair which he warranted to have grown on the head of St. 
Peter. He blessed the enterprise, and cursed Harold ; and 
requested that the Normans would pay " Peter's Pence " — or a 
tax to himself of a penny a year on every house — a little more 
regularly in future, if they could make it convenient. 

King Harold had a rebel brother in Flanders, who was a 
vassal of Harold Hardrada, King of Norway. This brother, 
and this Norwegian king, joining their forces against England, 
with Duke William's help, won a fight in which the English 
were commanded by two nobles, and then besieged York. 
Harold, who was waiting for the Normans on the coast ai 
Hastings with his army, marched to Stamford Bridge upon the 
River Derwent to give them instant battle. 

He found them drawn ^p in a hollow cirele, mjtfked out b? 



44 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ^^ 

their shining spears. Riding round this circle at a distance, t<f^ 
survey it, he saw a brave figure on horseback, in a blue mantle 
and a bright helmet, whose horse suddenly stumbled and threw 
him. 

" Who is that man who has fallen ? " Harold asked of one 
of his captains. 

" The king of Norway," he replied. 

" He is a tall and stately king," said Harold j " but his end 
is near. 

He added, in a little while, " Go yonder to my brother, and 
tell him, if he withdraw his troops, he shall be Earl of North- 
umberland, and rich and powerful in England. 

The captain rode away, and gave the message. 

" What will he give to my friend the king of Norway ? " 
Asked the brother. 

*' Seven feet of earth for a grave," replied the captain. 

" No more ? " returned the brother, with a smile. 

" The king of Norway being a tall man, perhaps a little 
more," replied the captain. 

" Ride back ! " said the brother, " and tell King Harold to 
make ready for the fight." 

He did so very soon. And such a fight King Harold led 
against that force, that his brother, and the Norwegian king, 
and every chief of note in all their host, except the Norwegian 
king's son, Olave, to whom he gave honorable dismissal, were 
left dead upon the field. The victorious army marched to 
York. As King Harold sat there at the feast, in the midst of 
all his company, a stir was heard at the doors ; and messengers 
all covered with mire, from riding far and fast through broken 
ground, came hurrying in to report that the Normans had 
landed in England. 

The intelligence was true. They had been tossed about by 
contrary winds, and some of their ships had been wrecked. A 
part of their own shore, to which they had been driven back, 
was strewn with Norman bodies. But they had once more 
made sail, led by the duke's own galley, a present from his 
wife, upon the prow whereof the figure of a golden boy stood 
pointing towards England. By day, the banner of the three 
Lions of Normandy, the divers-colored sails, the gilded vanes, 
the many decorations of this gorgeous ship, had glittered in the 
sun and sunny water ; by night, a light had sparkled like a star 
at her mast-head. And now, encamped near Hastings, with 
their leader lying in the old Roman castle of Pevensey, the En|;- 
Ulh retiring in all directions, the land for miles around scerehdd 



ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD THE SECOND. 



45 



and smoking, fired and pillaged, was the whole Norman power, 
hopeful and strong on English ground. 

Harold broke up the feast and hurried to London. Within 
a week his army was ready. He sent out spies to ascertain the 
Norman strength. William took them, caused them to be led 
through his whole camp, and then dismissed. " The Normans," 
said these spies to Harold, " are not bearded on the upper lip, 
as we English are, but are shorn. They are priests." " My 
men," replied Harold, with a laugh, " will find those priests 
good soldiers ! " 

" The Saxons," reported Duke William's outposts of Nor- 
man soldiers, who were instructed to retire as King Harold's 
army advanced, " rush on us through their pillaged country, 
with the fury of madmen." 

" Let them come, and come soon ! " said Duke William. 

Some proposals for a reconciliation were made, but were 
soon abandoned. In the middle of the month of October, in 
the year one thousand and sixty-six, the Normans and the Eng- 
lish came front to front. All night the armies lay encamped 
before each other, in a part of the country then called Senlac, 
now called (in remembrance of them) Battle. With the first 
dawn of day, they arose. There, in the faint light, were the 
English on a hill ; a wood behind them ; in their midst, the 
royal banner representing a fighting warrior, woven in gold 
thread, adorned with precious stones ; beneath the banner, as 
it rustled in the wind, stood King Harold on foot, with two of 
his remaining brothers by his side ; around them, still and silent 
as the dead, clustered the whole English army, — every soldier 
covered by his shield, and bearing in his hand his dreaded 
English battle-axe. 

On an opposite hill, in three lines, archers, foot-soldiers, 
horsemen, was the Norman force. Of a sudden, a great battle- 
cry, " God help us ! " burst from the Norman lines. The Eng- 
lish answered with their own battle-cry, " God's Rood ! 
Holy Rood ! " The Normans then came sweeping down the 
hill to attack the English. 

There was one tall Norman knight who rode before the Nor- 
man army on a prancing horse, throwing up his heavy sword 
and catching it, and singing of the bravery of his countrymen. 
An English knight, who rode out from the English force to 
meet him, fell by this knight's hand. Another English knight 
rode out, and he fell too. But then a third rode out, and killed 
the Norman. This was in the first beginning of the fight. It 
soon raged everywhere. 



46 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The English, keeping side by side, in a great mass, cared no 
more for the showers of Norman arrows than if they had been 
showers of Norman rain. Wlien the Norman horsemen rode 
against them, with their battle-axes they cut men and horses 
down. The Normans gave way. The English pressed forward. 
A cry went forth among the Norman troops that Duke William 
was killed. Duke William took off his helmet, in order that his 
face might be distinctly seen, and rode along the line before 
his men. This gave them courage. As they turned again to face 
the English, some of their Norman horse divided the pursuing 
body of the English from the rest \ and thus all that foremost 
portion of the English army fell, fighting bravely. The main 
body still remaining firm, heedless of the Norman arrows, and, 
with their battle-axes, cutting down the crowds of horsemen 
when they rode up like forests of young trees, — Duke William 
pretended to retreat. The eager English followed. The Nor- 
man army closed again, and fell upon them with great slaughter. 

" Still," said Duke William, " there are thousands of the 
English, firm as rocks around their king. Shoot upward, Nor- 
man archers, that your arrows may fall down upon their faces." 

The sun rose high, and sank, and the battle still raged. 
Through all the wild October day, the clash and din resounded 
in the air. In the red sunset, and in the white moonlight, heaps 
upon heaps of dead men lay strewed, a dreadful spectacle, all 
over the ground. King Harold, wounded with an arrow, in the 
eye, was nearly blind. His brothers were already killed. 
Twenty Norman knights, whose battered armor had flashed 
fiery and golden in the sunshine all day long, and now looked 
silvery in the moonlight, dashed forward to seize the royal ban- 
ner from the English knights and soldiers still faithfully col- 
lected round their blinded king. The king received a mortal 
wound and dropped. The English broke and fled. The Nor 
mans rallied, and the day was lost. 

O, what a sight beneath the moon and stars, when lights 
were shining in the tent of the victorious Duke William, which 
was pitched near the spot where Harold fell ; and he and his 
knights were carousing within ; and soldiers with torches, going 
slowly to and fro, without, sought for the corpse of Harold 
among piles of dead ; and the warrior, worked in golden thread 
and precious stones, lay low, all torn and soiled with blood; 
and the three Norman lions kept watch over the field ! 



ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRS7\ 4^ 



CHAPl'ER /III 

ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST, THE NORMAN CON- 
QUEROR. 

Upon the ground where the brave Harold fell, William the 
Norman afterwards founded an abbey, which, under the name 
of Battle Abbey, was a rich and splendid place through many 
a troubled year, though now it is a gray ruin overgrown with ivy. 
But the first work he had to do was to conquer the English 
thoroughly ; and that, as you know by this time, was hard work 
for any man. 

He ravaged several counties; he burned and plundered 
many towns ; he laid waste scores upon scores of miles of pleas- 
ant country ; he destroyed innumerable lives. At length 
Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, with other representatives 
of the clergy and the people, went to his camp, and submitted 
to him. Edgar, the insignificant son of Edmund Ironside, was 
proclaimed king by others, but nothing came of it. He fled to 
Scotland afterwards, where his sister, who was young and 
beautiful, married the Scottish king. Edgar himself was not 
important enough for anybody to care much about him. 

On Christmas Day, William was crowned in Westminster 
Abbey, under the title of William the First ; but he is best 
known as William the Conqueror. It was a strange coronation. 
One of the bishops who performed the ceremony asked the 
Normans, in French, if they would have Duke William for their 
king. They answered Yes. Another of the bishops put the same 
question to the Saxons, in English. They, too, answered Yes, 
with a loud shout. The noise being heard by a guard of Nor- 
man horse-soldiers outside, was mistaken for resistance on the 
part of the English. The guard instantly set fire to the neigh- 
boring houses, and a tumult ensued, in the midst of which the 
king, being left alone in the abbey with a few priests (and they 
all being in a terrible fright together) was hurriedly crowned. 
When the crown was placed upon his head, he swore to govern 
the English as well as the best of their own monarchs. I dare- 
say you think, as I do, that, if we except the Great Alfred, he 
might pretty easily have done that. 

Numbers of the English nobles had been killed in the last 
disastrous battle. Their estates, and the estates of all the nobles 



4$ A CHILD'S mSTORY OF ENGLAND. 

who had fought against him there, King William seized upon, 
and gave to his own Norman knights and nobles. Many great 
English families of the present time acquired their English 
lands in this way, and are very proud of it. 

But what is got by force miist be maintained by force. These 
nobles were obliged to build castles all over England, to defend 
their new property ; and, do what he would, the king could 
neither soothe nor quell the nation as he wished. He gradually 
introduced the Norman language and the Norman customs ; 
yet for a long time, the great body of the English remained 
sullen and revengeful. On his going over to Normandy, to 
visit his subjects there, the oppressions of his half-brother Odo, 
whom he left in charge of his English kingdom, drove the peo- 
ple mad. The men of Kent even invited over, to take posses- 
sion of Dover, their old enemy, Count Eustace of Boulogne, 
Who had led the fray when the Dover man was slain at his own 
fireside. The men of Pereford, aided by the Welsh, and com- 
manded by a chief named Edric the Wild, drove the Normans 
out of their country. Some of those who had been dispossessed 
of their lands banded together in the North of England, some 
in Scotland, some in the thick woods and marshes ; and when- 
soever they could fall upon the Normans, or "•upon the English 
who had submitted to the Normans, they fought, despoiled, and 
murdered, like the desperate-outlaws that they were. Conspira- 
cies were set on foot for a general massacre of the Normans, 
like the old massacre of the Danes. In short, the English were 
hi a murderous mood all through the kingdom. 

King William, fearing he might lose his conquest, came 
back and tried to pacify the London people by soft words. He 
then set forth to repress the country people by stern deeds. 
Among the towns which he besieged, and where he killed and 
maimed the inhabitants without any distinction, sparing none, 
young or old, armed or unarmed, were Oxford, Warwick, Lei 
cester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, York. In all these places, 
and in many others, fire and sword worked their utmost horrors, 
and made the land dreadful to behold. The streams and rivers 
were discolored with blood j the sky was blackened with smoke ; 
the fields were wastes of ashes ; the waysides were heaped up 
with dead. Such are the fatal results of conquest and ambi- 
tion ! Although William was a harsh and angry man, I do not 
suppose that he deliberately meant to work this shocking ruin, . 
when he invaded England. But what he had got by the strong 
hand, he could only keep by the strong hand ; and in so doing 
he made England a great grave. 



ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST. 



49 



Two sons of Harold, by name Edmund and Godwin, came 
over from Ireland with some ships against the Normans, but 
were defeated. This was scarcely done, when the outlaws in 
the woods so harassed York, that the governor sent to the king 
for help. The king despatched a general and a large force to 
occupy the town of Durham. The bishop of that place met the 
general outside the town, and warned him not to enter, as he 
would be in danger there. The general cared nothing for the 
warning, and went in with all his men. That night, on every hill 
within sight of Durham, signal-fires were seen to blaze. When 
the morning dawned, the English, who had assembled in great 
strength, forced the gates, rushed into the town, and slew the 
Normans every one. The English afterwards besought the 
Danes to come and help them. The Danes came with two 
hundred and forty ships. The outlawed nobles joined them ; 
they captured York, and drove the Normans out of that city. 
Then William bribed the Danes to go away, and took such 
vengeance on the English, that all the former fire and sword, 
smoke and ashes, death and ruin, were nothing compared with 
it. In melancholy songs and doleful stories, it was still sung 
and told by cottage-fires, on winter evenings a hundred years 
afterwards, how, in those dreadful days of the Normans, there 
was not, from the River Humber to the River Tyne, one in- 
habited village left, nor one cultivated field, — how there was 
nothing but a dismal ruin, where the human creatures and the 
beasts lay dead together. 

The outlaws had, at this time, what they called a Camp of 
Refuge, in the midst of the fens of Cambridgeshire. Protected 
by those marshy grounds which were difficult of approach, they 
lay among the reeds and rushes, and were hidden by the mists 
that rose up from the watery earth. Now there also was at that 
time, over the sea in Flanders, an Englishman named Here- 
ward, whose father had died in his absence, and whose property 
had been given to a Norman. When he heard of this wrong 
that had been done him (from such of the exiled English as 
chanced to wander into that country), he longed for revenge j 
and joining the outlaws in their camp of refuge, became their 
commander. He was so good a soldier, that the Normans sup- 
posed him to be aided by enchantment. William, even after he 
had made a road three miles in length across the Cambridge 
shire marshes, on purpose to attack this supposed enchanter, 
thought it necessary to engage an old lady who pretended to be 
a sorceress, to come and do a little enchantment in the royal 
©aus©. For this purpose she was pushed on before the troops 



JO A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

in a wooden tower : but Hereward very soon disposed of this 
unfortunate sorceress, by burning her, tower and all. 

The monks of the convent of Ely, near at hand, however, 
who were fond of good living, and who found it very uncom- 
fortable to have the country blockaded and their supplies of 
meat and drink cut off, showed the king a secret way of sur- 
prising the camp. So Hereward was soon defeated. Whether 
he afterwards died quietly, or whether he was killed after kill- 
ing sixteen of the men who attacked him (as some old rhymes 
relate that he did), I cannot say. His defeat put an end to the 
Camp of Refuge ; and very soon afterwards, the king, victori- 
ous both in Scotland and in England, quelled the last rebellious 
English noble. He then surrounded himself with Norman 
lords, enriched by the property of English nobles ; had a great 
survey made of all the land in England, which was entered as 
the property of its new owners, on a roll called Doomsday 
Book ; obliged the people to put out their fires and candies at a 
certain hour every night, on the ringing of a bell which was 
called The Curfew ; introduced the Norman dresses and man- 
ners ; made the Normans masters everywhere, and the English 
servants ; turned out the English bishops, and put Normans in 
their places ; and showed himself to be the Conqueror indeed. 

But, even with his own Normans, he had a restless life. 
They were always hungering and thirsting for the riches of the 
English ; and the more he gave, the more they wanted. His 
priests were as greedy as his soldiers. We know of only one 
Norman who plainly told his master the king, that he had come 
with him to England to do his duty as a faithful servant, and 
that property taken by force from other men had no charms for 
him. His name was Guilbert. We should not forget his name \ 
for it is good to remember and to honor honest men. 

Besides all these troubles, William the Conqueror was trou- 
bled by quarrels among his sons. He had three living. 
Robert, called Curthose, because of his short legs ; William, 
called Rufus, or the Red, from the color of his hair; and 
Henry, fond of learning, and called, in the Norman language, 
Beauclerc, or Fine-Scholar. When Robert grew up, he asked 
of his father the government of Normandy, which he had nomi- 
nally possessed, as a child, under his mother Matilda. The 
king refusing to grant it, Robert became jealous and discon- 
tented and happening one dayj while in this temper, to b^ 
ridiculed by his brothers, who threw water on him from a bal- 
cony as he was v/alking before the door, he drew his sword, 
rushed up stairs, and was only prevented by the king himseli 



ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE FIRST. 



5« 



from putting them to death. That same night, he hotly 
departed with some followers from his father's court, and 
endeavored to take the Castle of Rouen by surprise. Failing 
in this, he shut himself up in another castle in Normandy, which 
the king besieged, and where Robert one day unhorsed and 
nearly killed him without knowing who he was. His sub- 
mission when he discovered his father, and the intercession of 
the queen and others, reconciled them, but not soundly ; for 
Robert soon strayed abroad, and went from court to court with 
his complaints. He was a gay, careless, thoughtless fellow, 
spending all he got on musicians and dancers j but his mother 
loved him, and often, against the king's command, supplied him 
with money through a messenger named Samson. At length 
the incensed king swore he would tear out Samson's eyes ; and 
Samson, thinking that his only hope of safety was in becoming 
a monk, became one, went on such errands no more, and kept 
his eyes in his head. 

All this time, from the turbulent day of his strange corona- 
tion, the Conqueror had been struggling, you see, at any cost 
of cruelty and bloodshed, to maintain what he had seized. All 
his reign he struggled still, with the same object ever before 
him. He was a stern, bold man, and he succeeded in it. 

He loved money, and was particular in his eating ; but he 
had only leisure to indulge one other passion, and that was his 
love of hunting. He carried it to such a height, that he ordered 
whole villages and towns to be swept away to make forests for 
the deer. Not satisfied with sixty-eight royal forests, he laid 
waste an immense district to form another in Hampshire, 
called the New Forest. The many thousands of miserable 
peasants who saw their little houses pulled down, and them- 
selves and children turned into the open country without a shel- 
ter, detested him for his merciless addition to their many 
sufferings ; and wheal in the twenty-first year of his reign (which 
proved to be the last), he went over to Rouen, England was as 
full of hatred against him as if every leaf on every tree in all 
his royal forests had been a curse upon his head. In the New 
Forest, his son Richard (for he had four sons) had been gored 
to death by a stag; and the people said that this so cruelly 
made forest would yet be fatal to others of the Conqueror's 
race. 

He was engaged in a dispute with the king of France about 
some territory. While he stayed at Rouen, negotiating with 
that king, he kept his bed and took medicines, being advised 
by his physicians to do so, on account of having grown to an 



52 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



unwieldy size. Word being brought to him that the king o! 
France made light of this, and joked about it, he swore in a 
great rage that he should rue his jests. He assembled his 
army, marched into the disputed territory, burnt — his old way ! 
'—the vines, the crops ami fruit, and set the town of Nantes on 
fire. But in an evil hour ; for, as he rode over the hot ruins, 
his horse, setting his hoofs upon some burning embers, started, 
threw him forward against the pommel of the saddle, and gave 
him a mortal hurt. For six weeks he lay dying in a monastery 
near Rouen, and then made his will, giving England to William, 
Normandy to Robert, and five thousand pounds to Henry. 
And now his violent deeds lay heavy on his mind. He ordered 
money to be given to many English churches and monasteries, 
and — which was much better repentance — released his prisoners 
of State, some of whom had been confined in his dungeons 
twenty years. 

It was a September morning, and the sun was rising, when 
the king was awakened from slumber by the sound of a church- 
bell. " What bell is that ? " he faintly asked. They told him 
it was the bell of the chapel of Saint Mary. " I commend my 
soul," said he, " to Mary ! " and died. 

Think of his name. The Conqueror, and then consider how 
he lay in death ! Jhe moment he was dead, his physicians, 
priests, and nobles, not knowing what contest for the throne 
might now take place, or what might happen in it, hastened 
away, each man for himself and his own property ; the merce- 
nary servants of the court began to rob and plunder ; the body 
of the king, in the indecent strife, was rolled from the bed, and 
lay alone for hours upon the ground. O Conqueror ! of whom 
so many great names are proud now, of whom so many great 
names thought nothing then, it were better to have conquered 
one true heart than England ! 

By and by the priests came creeping in with prayers aild can- 
dles, and a good knight named Herluin, undertook (which no one 
else would do) to convey the body to Caen, in Normandy, in order 
that it might be buried in St. Stephen's Church there, which 
the Conqueror had founded. But fire, of which he had made 
such bad use in his life, seemed to follow him of itself in death. 
A great conflagration broke out in the town when the body was 
placed in the church ; and those present running out to ex- 
tinguish the flamxs, it was once again left alone. 

It was not even buried in peace. It was about to be let 
down in its royal robes into a tomb near the high altar, in pres- 
ence of a great concourse of people, when a loud voice in tk» 



ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND. 



53 



crowd cried out, "This ground is mine ! Upon it stood my 
father's house. This king despoiled me of both ground and 
house to build this church. In the great name of God, I here 
forbid this body to be covered with the earth that is my right ! " 
The priests and bishops present, knowing the speaker's right, 
and knowing that the king had often denied him justice, paid 
him down sixty shillings for the grave. Even then the corpse 
was not at rest. The tomb was too small, and they tried to 
force it in. It broke, a dreadful smell arose, the people hurried 
out into the air, and for the third time it was left alone. 

Where were the Conqueror's three sons, that they were nol 
at their father's burial } Robert was lounging among minstrels, 
dancers, and gamesters in France or Germany. Henry was 
carrying his five thousand pounds safely away in a convenient 
chest he had got made. William the Red was hurrying to 
England to lay his hands upon the royal treasure and the crown. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ENGLAND UNDER V/ILLIAM THE SECOND, CALLED RUFUS. 

William the Red, in breathless haste, secured the three 
great forts of Dover, Pevensey and Hastings, and made with 
hot speed for Winchester, where the royal treasure was kept. 
The treasurer delivering him the keys, he found that it amounted 
to sixty thousand pounds in silver, besides gold and jewels. 
Possessed of this wealth, he soon persuaded the Archbishop of 
Canterbury to crown him, and became William the Second, 
King of England. 

Rufus was no sooner on the throne than he ordered into 
prison again the unhappy state captives whom his father had set 
tree, and directed a goldsmith to ornament his father's tomb pro- 
fusely with gold and silver. It would have been more dutiful 
in him to have attended the sick Conqueror when he was dy- 
ing ; but England itself, like this Red King who once governed 
it, has sometimes made expensive tombs for dead men whom it 
treated shabbily when they were alive. 

The king's brother, Robert of Normandy, seeming quits 
content to be only duke of that country, and the king's othei 
brother, Fine-Scholar, being quiet enough with his five thou- 
sand pounds in a chest, the king flattered himself, we may sup* 



54 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



pose, with the hope of an easy reign. But easy reigns wert 
difficult to have in those days. The turbulent Bishop Odo 
(who had blessed the Norman arihy at the battle of Hastings, 
and who, I dare say, took all the credit of the victory to him- 
self) soon began, in concert with some powerful Norman nobles, 
to trouble the Red King. 

The truth seems to be, that this bishop and his friends, who 
had lands in England and lands in Normandy, wished to hold 
both under one sovereign ; and greatly preferred a thoughtless, 
good-natured person such as Robert was to Rufus ; who, though 
far from being an amiable man in any respect, was keen, and 
not to be imposed upon. They declared in Robert's favor, and 
retired to their castles (those castles were very troublesome to 
kings) in a sullen humor. The Red King, seeing the Normans 
thus falling from him, revenged himself upon them by appeal- 
ing to the English, to whom he made a variety of promises, 
which he never meant to perform, — in particular, promises to 
soften the cruelty of the Forest Laws ; and who, in return, so 
aided him with their valor, that Odo was besieged in the Cas- 
tle of Rochester, and forced to abandon it, and to depart from 
England forever ; whereupon the other rebellious Norman 
nobles were soon reduced and scattered. 

Then the Red King went over to Normandy, where the 
people suffered greatly under the loose rule of Duke Robert. 
The king's object was to seize upon the duke's dominions. 
This the duke, of course, prepared to resist ; and miserable 
war between the two brothers seemed inevitable, when the 
powerful nobles on both sides, who had seen so much of war, 
interfered to prevent it. A treaty was made. Each of the two 
brothers agreed to give up something of his claims, and that 
the longer liver of the two should inherit all the dominions of 
the other. When they had come to this loving understanding, 
they embraced, and joined their forces against Fine-Scholar, 
who had bought some territory of Robert with a part of his five 
thousand pounds, and was considered a dangerous individual 
-in consequence. 

St. Michael's Mount, in Normandy (there is another St. 
Michael's Mount in Cornwall wonderfully like it), was then, as 
it is now, a strong place, perched upon the top of a high rock, 
around which when the tide is in, the sea flows, leaving no 
road to the main land. In this place Fine-Scholar shut himself 
up with his soldiers, and here he was closely besieged by his 
two brothers. At one lime, when he was reduced to great dis-. 
tress for want of water, the !.-enerous Robert not only permitted 



ENGLAND UNDER WILLIAM THE SECOND. ee 

his men to get water, but sent Fine-Scholar wine from his own 
table ; and, on being remonstrated with by the Red King, said, 
" What ! shall we let our own brother die of thirst ? Where 
shall we get another when he is gone ? " At another time the 
Red King, riding alone on the shore of the bay, looking up at 
the castle, was taken by two of Fine-Scholar's men, one of 
whom was about to kill him, when he cried out, " Hold, knave 1 
I am the King of England ! " The story says that the soldier 
raised him from the ground respectfully and humbly, and that 
the king took him into his service. The story may or may not 
be true ; but at any rate, it is true that Fine-Scholar could not 
hold out against his united brothers, and that he abandoned 
Mount St. Michael, and wandered about, — as poor and forlorn 
as other scholars have b^en sometimes known to be. 

- The Scotch became unquiet in the Red King's time, and 
were twice defeated, — the second time with the loss of their 
king, Malcolm, and his son. The Welsh became unquiet too. 
Against them Rufus was less successful ; for they fought among 
their native mountains, and did great execution on the king's 
troops. Robert of Normandy became unquiet too ; and com- 
plaining that his brother, the king, did not faithfully perform 
his part of their agreement, took up arms, and obtained assist- 
ance from the King of France, whom Rufus, in the end, bought 
off with vast sums of money. England became unquiet too. 
Lord Mowbray, the powerful Earl of Northumberland, headed 
a great conspiracy to depose the king, and to place upon the 
throne Stephen, the Conqueror's near relative. The plot was 
discovered ; all the chief conspirators were seized ; some were 
lined, some were put in prison, some were put to death. The 
Earl of Northumberland himself, was shut up in a dungeon be- 
neath Windsor Castle, where he died an old man thirty long 
years afterwards. The priests in England were more unquiet 
than any other class or power ; for the Red King treated them 
with such small ceremony, that he refused to appoint new 
bishops or archbishops when the old ones died, but kept all the 
wealth belonging to those offices in his own hands. In return 
for this, the priests wrote his life when he was dead, and abused 
him well. I am inclined to think myself that there was little to 
choose between the priests and the Red King ; that both sides 
were greedy and designing, and that they were fairly matched. 
The Red King was false of heart, selfish, covetous and 
mean. He had a worthy minister in his favorite, Ralph, nick- 
named — for almost every famous person had a nickname in 
those rough days — Flambard, or the Firebrand. Once the 



^5 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

king-, being ill, became penitent, and made Anselm, a forcigt 
priest and a good man, Archbishop of Canterbnry. But he no 
sooner got well again, than he repented of his repentance, and 
persisted in wrongfully keeping to himself some of the wealth 
belonging to the archbishopric. This led to violent disputes, 
which were aggravated by there being in Rome, at that time, 
iwo rival popes ; each of whom declared he was the only real, 
original, infallible pope, who couldn't make a mistake. At lasj 
Anselm, knowing the Red King's character, and not feeling 
himself safe in England, asked leave to return abroad. Thi 
Red King gladly gave it ; for he knew that as soon as Anselm 
was gone he could begin to store up all the Canterbury mone) 
again for his own use. 

By such means, and by taxing and oppressing the EnglisV 
people in every possible way, the Red King became very ricl) 
When he wanted money for any purpose, he raised it by somr 
means or other, and cared nothing for the injustice he did, oi 
the misery he caused. Having the opportunity of buying from 
Robert the whole duchy of Normandy for five years, he taxed 
the English people more than ever, and made the very convents 
sell their plate and valuables to supply him with the means to 
make the purchase. But he was as quick and eager in putting 
down revolt, as he was in raising money ; for a part of the 
Norman people objecting — very naturally, I think — to being 
sold in this way, he headed an army against them with all the 
speed and energy of his father. He was so impatient, that he 
embarked for Normandy in a great gale of wind. And when 
tlie sailors told him it was dangerous to go to sea in such angry 
weather, he replied, '' Hoist sail and away ! Did you ever hear 
of a king who was drowned?'' 

Vou will wonder how it was that even careless Robert came 
10 sell his dominions. It happened thus. It had long been 
the custom for many English people to make journeys to Jeru- 
salem, which were called pilgrimages, in order that they might 
pray beside the tomb of our Saviour there. Jerusalem belong- 
ing to the Turks, and the Turks hating Christianity, these 
Christian travellers were often insulted and ill-used. The pil- 
grims bore it patiently for some time ; but at length a remark- 
able man of great earnestness and eloquence, called Peter the 
Hermit, began to preach in various places against the Turks, 
and to declare that it was the duty of good Christians to drive 
away those unbelievers from the tomb of our Saviour, and to 
take possession of it and protect it. An excitement, such as 
the world had never known before, was created. Thousandl 



ENGLAND UNDER W/IJJAAT TI/E SECOND. 



57 



and thousands of rncn, of all ranks and conditions, departed 
for Jerusalem to make war against the Turks. The war is 
called in history the First Crusade ; and every Crusader wore 
a cross marked on his right shoulder. 

All the Crusaders were not zealous Christians. Among 
them were vast numbers of the restless, idle, profligate ana 
adventurous spirits of the time. Some became Crusaders for 
the love of change ; some in hope of plunder ; some because 
they had nothing to do at home ; some because they did what 
the priests told them ; some because they liked to see foreign 
countries ; some because they were fond of knocking men 
about, and would as soon knock a Turk about as a Christian. 
Robert of Normandy may have been influenced by all these 
motives ; and by a kind desire, besides, to save the Christian 
pilgrims from bad treatment in future. He wanted to raise a 
number of armed men, and go to the Crusade. He could not 
do so without money. lie had no money ; and he sold his do- 
minions to his brother, the Red King, for five years. With the 
large sum thus obtained, he fitted out his Crusaders gallantly, 
and went away to Jerusalem in martial state. The Red King, 
who made money out of everything, stayed at home, busily 
squeezing more money out of Normans and English. 

After three years of great hardship and suffering, from 
shipwreck at sea, from travel in strange lands, from hunger, 
thirst, and fever, upon the burning sands of the desert and 
from the fury of the Turks, — the valiant Crusaders got posses- 
sion of our Saviour's tomb. The Turks were still resisting and 
fighting bravely, but this success increased the general desire 
in Kurope to join the (Jrusade. Another great French duke 
was proposing to sell his dominions for a term to the rich Red 
King, when the Red King's reign came to a sudden and violent 
end. 

You have not forgotten the New Forest which the Conqueror 
made, and which the miserable people whose homes he had 
laid waste so hated. The cruelty of the forest-laws, and the 
torture and death they brought upon the peasantry, increased 
this hatred. The poor, persecuted country-people believed that 
the New Forest was enchanted. They said that in thunder- 
storms, and on dark nights, demons appeared, moving beneath 
the branches of the gloomy trees. They said that a terrible 
spectre had foretold to Norman hunters that the Red King 
should be cunislied there. And now, in the pleasant season of 
May, whei. the Red King had reiu:ncd almost thirteen years, 
and a second prince of the Conqueror's blood — another Rich' 



58 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ard, the son of Duke Robert — was killed by an arrow in this 
dreaded forest, the people said that the second time was not 
the last, and that there was another death to come. 

It was a lonely forest, accursed in the people's heart for the 
wicked deeds that have been done to make it ; and no man, 
save the king and his courtiers and huntsmen, liked to stray 
there. But, in reality, it was like any other forest. In the 
spring, the green leaves broke out of the buds j in the summer, 
flourished heartily, and made deep shades ; in the winter, 
shrivelled, and blew down and lay in brown heaps on the moss. 
Some trees were stately, and grew high and strong ; some had 
fallen of themselves ; some were felled by the forester's axe \ 
some were hollow, and the rabbits burrowed at their roots ; 
some few were struck by lightning, and stood white and bare. 
There were hillsides covered with rich fern, on which the morn- 
ing dew so beautifully sparkled ; there were brooks where the 
deer went down to drink, or over which the whole herd bounded, 
flying from the arrows of the huntsmen ; there were sunny 
glades and solemn places where but little light came through 
the rustling leaves. The songs of the birds in the New Forest 
were pLeasanter to hear than the shouts of fighting men out- 
side ; and even when the Red King and his court came hunt- 
ing through its solitudes, cursing loud and riding hard, with a 
jingling of stirrups and bridles and knives and daggers, they 
did much less harm there than among the English or Normans j 
and the stags died (as they lived) far easier than the people. 

Upon a day in August, the Red King, nov/ reconciled to 
his brother, Fine-Scholar, came with a great train to hunt in 
the New Forest. Fine-Scholar was of the party. They were 
a merry party, and had lain all night at Malwood-Keep, a hunt- 
ing lodge in the forest, where they had made good cheer, both 
at supper and breakfast, and had drunk a deal of wine. The 
party dispersed in various directions, as the custom of hunters 
then was. The king took with him only Sir Walter Tyrrel, 
who was a famous sportsman, and to whom he had given, be- 
fore they mounted horse that morning, two fine arrows. 

The last time the king was ever seen alive, he was riding 
with Sir Walter Tyrrel, and their dogs were hunting together. 

It was almost night when a poor charcoal-burner, passing 
through the forest with his cart, came upon the solitary body 
of a dead man, shot with an arrow in the breast, and still bleed- 
ing. He got it into his cart. It was the body of the king. 
Shaken and tumbled, with its red beard all whitened with lim& 
and clotted with blood, it was driven in the cart by the ek^ir* 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST. 5^ 

coal burner next day to Winchester Cathedral, where it was re- 
ceived and buried. 

Sir Walter Tyrrel, who escaped to Normandy, and claimed 
the protection of the king of France, swore, in France, that the 
Red King was suddenly shot dead by an arrow from an unseen 
hand, while they were hunting together ; that he was feaiful of 
being suspected as the king's murderer ; and that he instantly 
set spurs to his horse, and fled to the sea-shore. Others de- 
clared that the king and Sir Walter Tyrrel were hunting in 
company, a little before sunset, standing in bushes opposite 
one another, when a stag came between them ; that the king 
drew his bow and took aim, but the string broke ; that the king 
then cried, " Shoot, Walter, in the Devil's name ! " that Sir 
Walter shot ; that the arrow glanced against a tree, was turned 
aside from the stag, and struck the king from his horse, dead. 

By whose hand the Red King really fell, and whether that 
hand despatched the arrow to his breast by accident or by 
design, is only known to God. Some think his brother may 
have caused him to be killed ; but the Red King had made so 
many enemies, both among priests and people, that suspicion 
may reasonably rest upon a less unnatural murderer. Men 
know no more than that he was found dead in the New Forest, 
which the suffering people had regarded as a doomed ground 
for his race 



CHAPTER X. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST, CALLED FINE-SCHOLAR. 

Fine-Scholar, on hearing of the Red King's death, hurried 
to Winchester with as much speed as Rufus himself had made, 
to seize the royal treasure. But the keeper of the treasure, 
who had been one of the hunting-party in the forest, made 
haste to Winchester too, and, arriving there at about the same 
time, refused to yield it up. Upon this, Fine-Scholar drew his 
sword, and threatened to kill the treasurer ; who might have 
paid for his fidelity with his life, but that he knew longer resist- 
ance to be useless, when he found the prince supported by a 
company of powerful barons, who declared they were deter- 
mined to make him king. The treasurer, therefore, gave up 
the money and jewels of the crown ; and on the third day after 



6o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the death of the Red King, being a Sunday, Fine-Scholar stood 
before the high altar in Westminster Abbey, and made a sol- 
emn declaration, that he would resign the Church property 
which his brother had seized ; that he would do no wrong to 
the nobles ; and that he would restore to the people the laws ot 
Edward the Confessor, with all the improvements of William 
the Conqueror. So began the reign of King Henry the First. 

The people were attached to their new king, both because 
he had known distresses, and because he was an Englishman 
by birth, and not a Norman. To strengthen this last hold upon 
them, the king wished to marry an English lady ; and could 
think of no other wife than Maud the Good, the daughter of 
the king of Scotland. Although this good princess did not 
love the king, she was so affected by the representations the 
nobles made to her of the great charity it would be in her to 
unite the Norman and Saxon races, and prevent hatred and 
bloodshed between them for the future, that she consented to 
become his wife. After some disputing among the priests, who 
said that as she had been in a convent in her youth, and had 
worn the veil of a nun, she could not lawfully be married, — 
against which the princess stated that her aunt, with whom she 
had lived in her youth, had indeed sometimes thrown a piece 
of black stuff over her, but for no other reason than because 
the nun's veil was the only dress the conquering Normans re- 
spected in girl or woman, and not because she had taken the 
vows of a nun, which she never had, — she was declared free to 
marry, and was made King Henry's queen. A good queen she 
•was, — beautiful, kind-hearted, and worthy of a better husband 
than the king. 

For he was a cunning and unscrupulous man, though firm 
and clever. He cared very little for his word, and took any 
means to gain his ends. AH this is shown in his treatment of 
his brother Robert, — Robert, who h:d suffered him to be re- 
freshed with water, and who had sent him the wine from his 
own table, when he was shut up, with the crows flying below 
him, parched with thirst, in the castle on the top of St. Mi- 
chael's Mount, where his Red brother would have let him die. 

Before the king began to deal with Robert, he removed and 
disgraced all the favorites of the late king ; who were for the 
most part base characters, much detested by the people. Flam- 
bard, or Firebrand, whom the late king had made Bishop of 
Durham, of all things in the world, Henry imprisoned in the 
Tower ; but Firebrand v/as a great joker and a jolly companion, 
and made himself so popular with his guards, that they pre* 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST. 01 

tended to know nothing about a long rope that was sent into 
his prison at the bottom of a deep flagon of wine. The guards 
took the wine, and Firebrand took the rope ; with which, when 
they were fast asleep, he let himself down from a window in 
the night, and so got cleverly aboard ship and away to Nor- 
mandy. 

Now Robert, when his brother Fine-Scholar came to the 
throne, was still absent in the Holy Land. Henry pretended 
that Robert had been made sovereign of that country, and he 
had been away so long, that the ignorant people believed it. 
But, behold, when Henry had been some time king of England, 
Robert came home to Normandy ! having leisurely returned 
from Jerusalem through Italy, in which beautiful country he 
had enjoyed himself very much, and had married a lady as 
beautiful as itself. In Normandy, he found Firebrand waiting 
to urge him to assert his claim to the English crown, and de- 
clare war against King Hanry. This after great loss of time 
in feasting and dancing with his beautiful _ Italian wife among 
his Norman friends, he at last did. 

The English in general were on King Henry's side, though 
many of the Normans were on Robert's. But the English 
sailors deserted the king, and took a great part of the English 
fleet over to Normandy ; so that Robert came to invade this 
country in no foreign vessels, but in English ships. The virtu- 
ous Anselm, however, whom Henry had invited back from 
abroad, and made Archbishop of Canterbur}^, was steadfast in 
the king's cause ; and it was so well supported, that the two 
armies, instead of fighting, made a peace. Poor Robert, who 
trusted anybody and everybody, readily trusted his brother, the 
king ; and agreed to go home and receive a pension from Eng- 
land, on condition that all his followers were fully pardoned. 
This the king very faithfully promised ; but Robert was no 
sooner gone than he began to punish them. 

Among them was the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on being 
summoned by the king to answer to five-and-forty accusations, 
rode away to one of his strong castles, shut himself up therein, 
called around him his tenants and vassals, and fought for his 
liberty, but was defeated and banished. Robert, with all his 
faults, was so true to his word, that, when he first heard of this 
nobleman having risen against his-brother, he laid waste the 
Earl of Shrewsbury's estates in Normandy to show the king 
that he would favor no breach of their treaty. Finding, on 
better information, afterwards, that the earl's only crime was 
having been his friend, he came over to England, in his old 



52 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

thoughtless, warm-hearted way, to intercede with the king, and 
remind him of the solemn promise to pardon all his followers. 

This confidence might have put the false king to the blush, 
but it did not. Pretending to be very friendly, he so surrounded 
his brother with spies and traps, that Robert, who was quite in 
his power, had nothing for it but to renounce his pension, and 
escape while he could. Getting home to Normandy, and un- 
derstanding the king better now, he naturally allied himself 
with his old friend the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had still thirty 
castles in that country. This was exactly what Henry wanted. 
He immediately declared that Robert had broken the treaty, 
and next year invaded Normandy. 

He pretended that he came to deliver the Normans at their 
own request, from his brother's misrule. There is reason to 
fear that his misrule was bad enough ; for his beautiful wife 
had died, leaving him with an infant son ; and his court was 
again so careless, dissipated, and ill-regulated, that it was said 
he sometimes lay in bed of a day for want of clothes to put 
on, — his attendants having stolen all his dresses. But he 
headed his army like a brave prince and a gallant soldier, though 
he had the misfortune to be taken prisoner by King Henry, 
with four hundred of his knights. Among them was poor 
harmless Edgar Atheling who loved Robert well. Edgar v/as 
not important enough to be severe with. The king afterwards 
gave him a small pension, which he lived upon and died upon 
in peace, among the quiet woods and fields of England. 

And Robert, — poor, kind, generous, wasteful, heedless 
Robert, with so many faults, and yet with virtues that might 
have made a better and a happier man, — what was the end oi 
him ? If the king had had the magnanimity to say with a kind 
air, " Brother, tell me, before these noblemen, that from this 
time you will be my faithful follower and friend, and never raise 
your hand against me or my forces more," he might have 
trusted Robert to the death. But the king was not a magnani- 
mous man. He sentenced his brother to be confined for life 
in one of the royal castles. In the beginning of his imprison- 
ment he was allowed to ride out, guarded ; but he one day broke 
away from his guard and gallopped off. He had the evil for- 
tune to ride into a swamp, where his horse stuck fast and he 
was taken. When the king heard of it he ordered him to be 
blinded, which was done by putting a red-hot metal basin on 
his eyes. 

And so, in darkness and in prison many years, he thought 
of all his past life, — of the time he had wasted, of the treas- 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRST. 63 

ure he had squandered, of the opportunities he had lost, of the 
youth he had thrown away, of the talents he had neglected. 
Sometimes, on fine autumn mornings, he would sit and think of 
the old hunting parties in the free forest, where he had been the 
foremost and gayest. Sometimes, in the still nights, he would 
wake, and mourn for the many nights that had stolen past him 
at the gaming-table,; sometimes would seem to hear, upon the 
melancholy wind, the old songs of the minstrels ; sometimes 
would dream, in his blindness, of the light and glitter of the Nor- 
man court. Many and many a time, he groped back, in his 
fancy, to Jerusalem, where he had fought so well ; or, at the 
head of his brave companions, bowed his feathered helmet to 
the shouts of welcome greeting him in Italy, and seemed again 
to walk among the sunny vineyards, or on the shore of the blue 
sea, with his lovely wife. And then, thinking of her grave, and 
of his fatherless boy, he would stretch out his solitary arms and 
weep. 

At length, one day, there lay in prison, dead, with cruel and 
disfiguring scars upon his eyelids, bandaged from his jailer's 
sight, but on which the eternal heavens looked down, a worn 
old man of eighty. He had once been Robert of Normandy. 
Pity him ! 

At the time when Robert of Normandy was taken prisoner 
by his brother, Robert's little son was only five years old. This 
child was taken too, and carried before the king, sobbing and 
crying ; for, young as he was, he knew he had good reason to 
be afraid of his royal uncle. The king was not much accus- 
tomed to pity those who were in his power, but his cold heart 
seemed for the moment to soften towards the boy. He v/as 
observed to make a great effort, as if to prevent himself from 
being cruel, and ordered the child to be taken away ; where- 
upon a certain baron, who had married a daughter of Duke 
Robert's (by name, Helie of Saint Saen), took charge of him 
tenderly. The king's gentleness did not last long. Before 
two years were over, he sent messengers to this lord's castle to 
seize the child and bring him away. The baron was not there 
at the time ; but his servants were faithful, and carried the boy 
off in his sleep and hid him. When the baron came home and 
was told what the king had done, he took the child abroad, 
and leading him by the hand, went from king to king, and from 
court to court, relating how the child had a claim to the throne 
of England, and how his uncle the king, knowing that he had 
that clciim, would hp,ve murdered him perhaps, but for his gscapi. 



64 A CHILD'S HISTOT^Y OF ENGLAND. 

The youth and innocence of the pretty little William Fitz- 
Robert (for that was his name) made him many friends at that 
time. When he became a young man, the King of France, 
nniting with the French Counts of Anjou and Flanders, sup- 
ported his cause against the King of England, and took many 
of the king's towns and castles in Normandy. But King Henry, 
artful and cunning always, bribed some of William's friends with 
money, some with promises, some with power. He bought off 
the Count of Anjou, by promising to marry his eldest son, also 
named William, to the count's daughter ; and indeed the whole 
trust of this king's life was in such bargains ; and he believed 
(as many another king has done since, and as one king did in 
France a very little time ago)that every man's truth and honor 
can be bought at some price. For all this, he was so afraid 
of William Fitz-Robert and his friends, that for a long time he 
believed his life to be in danger ; and never lay down to sleep, 
even in h.:> j^alace, surrounded by his guards, without having a 
sword and buckler at his bedside. 

To strengthen his power, the king with great ceremony 
betrothed his eldest daughter, Matilda, then a child only eight 
years old, to be the wife of Henry the Fifth, the Emperor of 
Germany. To raise her marriage-portion, he taxed the English 
people in a most oppressive manner; then treated them to a 
great procession, to restore their good humor ; and sent Matilda 
away, in fine state, with the German ambassadors, to be edu- 
cated in the country of her future husband. 

And now his queen, Maud the Good, unhappily died. It 
was a sad thought for that gentle lady, that the only hope with 
which she had married a man whom she had never loved, — the 
hope of reconciling the Norman and English races — had failed. 
At the very time of her death, Normandy and all France was in 
arms against England ; for, so soon as his last danger was over, 
King Henry had been false to all the French powers he had 
promised, bribed and bought, and they had naturally united 
against him. After some fighting, however, in which few suf- 
fered but the unhappy common people (who always suffered, 
whatsoever was the matter), he began to promise, bribe and 
buy again j and by those means, and by the help of the pope, 
who exerted himself to save more bloodshed, and by solemnly 
declaring, over and over again, that he really was in earnest 
this time, and would keep his word, the king made peace. 

One of the first consequences of this peace was, that the 
king went over to Normandy with his son Prince William and 
a great retmue, to have the prince acknowledged as his sue- 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIRST. ^ 

cesser by the Norman nobles, and to contract the promised 
marriage (this was one of the many promises the king had 
broken) between him and the daughter of the Count of Anjou. 
Both these things were triumphantly done, with great show and 
rejoicing; and, on the 25th of November, in the year 1120, the 
whole retinue prepared to embark at the Port of Barfleur, for 
the voyage home. 

On that day, and at that place, there came to the king, Fitz« 
Stephen, a sea-captain, and said, — 

" My liege, my father served your father all his life, upon 
the sea. He steered the ship, with the golden boy upon the 
prow, in which your father sailed to conquer England. I 
beseech you to grant me the same office. I have a fair vessel 
in the harbor here, called ' The White Ship,' manned by fifty 
sailors of renown. I pray you, sire, to let your servant have 
the honor of steering you in ' The White Ship ' to England ! " 

" I am sorry, friend," replied the king, " that my vessel is 
already chosen, and that I cannot (therefore) sail with the son 
of the man who served my father. But the prince and all his 
company shall go along with you, in the fair ' White Ship/ 
manned by the fifty sailors of renown." 

An hour or two afterwards, the king set sail in the vessel he 
had chosen, accompanied by other vessels, and, sailing all night 
with a fair and gentle wind, arrived upon the coast of England 
in the morning. While it was yet night the people in some of those 
ships heard a faint wild cry come over the sea, and wondered 
what it was. 

Now the prince was a dissolute, debauched young man of 
eighteen, who bore no love to the English, and had declared 
that when he came to the throne he would yoke them to the 
plough like oxen. He went aboard " The White Ship," with 
one hundred and forty youthful nobles like himself, among 
whom were eighteen noble ladies of the highest rank. All this 
gay company, with their servants and the fifty sailors, made 
three hundred souls aboard the fair " White Ship." 

"Give three casks of wine, Fitz-Stephen," said the prince, 
'* to the fifty sailors of renown. My father, the king, has sailed 
out of the harbor. What time is there to make merry here, 
and yet reach England with the rest ? " 

" Prince," said Fitz-Stephen, "before mormng my fifty and 
* The White Ship ' shall overtake the swiftest vessel in attend- 
ance on your father, the king, if we sail at midnight ! " 

Then the prince commanded to make merry ; and the sailors 
drank out the three casks of wine, and the prince and all the 



66 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

noble company danced in the moonlight on the deck of " Th« 
White Ship." 

When at last she shot out of the harbor of Barfleur, there 
was not a sober seaman on board. But the sails were all set, 
and the oars all going merrily. Fitz-Stephen had the helm. 
The gay young nobles and the beautiful ladies wrapped in 
mantles of various bright colors to protect them from the cold, 
talked, laughed, and sang. The prince encouraged the fifty 
sailors to row harder, yet, for the honor of "The White 
Ship." 

Crash ! A terrific cry broke from three hundred hearts. It 
was the cry the people in the distant vessels of the king heard 
faintly on the water. " The White Ship" had struck upon a 
rock, — was filling, — agoing down ! 

Fitz-Stephen hurried the prince into a boat, with some few 
nobles. "Push off," he whispered, "and row to the land. 
It is not so far, and the sea is smooth. The rest of us must 
die." 

But as they rowed away fast from the sinking ship, the prince 
heard the voice of his sister Marie, the countess of Perche, 
calling for help. He never in his life had been so good as he 
was then. He cried in an agony, " Row back at any risk ! I 
cannot bear to leave her ! " 

They rowed back. As the prince held out his arms to catch 
his sister, such numbers leaped in, that the boat was over- 
set. And in the same instant " The White Ship " went down. 

Only two men floated. They both clung to the mainyard 
of the ship, which had broken from the mast and now supported 
them. One asked the other who he was ? He said, " I am a 
nobleman, Godfrey by name, the son of Gilbert de FAigle. 
And you ? " said he. " I am Berold, a poor butcher of Rouen," 
was the answer. Then they said together, " Lord be merci- 
ful to us both ! " and tried to encourage one another, as they 
drifted in the cold benumbing sea on that unfortunate Novembei 
night. 

By and by, another man came swimming towards them, whom 
they knew, when he pushed aside his long wet hair, to be Fitz- 
Stephen. " Where is the prince ? " said he. " Gone, gone ! " 
the two cried together. " Neither he, nor his brother, nor his 
sister, nor the king's niece, nor her brother, nor any one of all 
the brave three hundred, noble or commoner, except we three, 
has risen above the water ! " Fitz-Stephen, with a ghastly face, 
cried, " Woe ! woe to me ! " and sunk to the bottom. 

The other two clung to the yard for some hours. At length 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIRS 7% 6^ 

the young noble said faintly, " I am exhausted and chilx<:d with 
the cold, and can hold no longer. Farewell, good friend ! God 
preserve you!" So he dropped and sunk; and, of all the 
brilliant crowd, the poor butcher of Rouen alone was saved. In 
the morning, some fishermen saw him floating in his sheep-skin 
coat, and got him into their boat — the sole relater of the dis- 
mal tale. 

For three days, no one dared to carry the intelligence to 
the king. At length they sent into his presence a little boy, 
who, weeping bitterly, and kneeling at his feet told him that 
" The White Ship " was lost with all on board. The king fell 
to the ground like a dead man, and never, never afterwards was 
seen to smile. 

But he plotted again, and promised again, and bribed and 
bought again, in his old deceitful way. Having no son to sue- 
ceed him, after all his pains ("The prince will never yoke us 
to the plough now ! " said the English people), he took a second 
wife, — Adelias, or Alice, a duke's daughter, and the pope's 
niece. Having no more children, however, he proposed to the 
barons to swear that they would recognize as his successor his 
daughter Matilda, whom, as she was now a widow, he married 
to the eldest son of the count of Anjou, Geoffrey, surnamed 
Plantagenet, from a custom he had of wearing a sprig of flower 
ing broom (called genet in French) in his cap for a feather. As 
one false man usually makes many, and as a false king, in par- 
ticular, is pretty certain to make a false court, the barons took 
the oath about the succession of Matilda (and her children after 
her) twice over without in the least intending to keep it. The 
king was now relieved from any remaining fears of William 
Fitz-Robert, by his death in the Monastery of St. Omer, in 
France, at twenty-six years old, of a pike-wound in the hand. 
And, as Matilda gave birth to three sons, he thought the succes- 
sion to the throne secure. 

He spent most of the latter part of his life, which was 
troubled by family quarrels, in Normandy, to be near Matilda. 
When he had reigned upwards of thirty-five years, and was 
sixty-seven years old, he died of an indigestion and fever, 
brought on by eating, when he was far from well, of a fish called 
lamprey, against which he had often been cautioned by his phy- 
sicians. His remains were brought over to Reading Abbey, 
to be buried. 

You may perhaps hear the cunning and promise-breaking of 
King Henry the First, called "policy," by some people, and 
*' diplomacy " by others. Neither of these fine words will in 



68 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF EN-GLAND. 

the least mean that it was true ; and nothing thai is not truo 
can possibly be good. 

His greatest merit, that I know of, was his love of learning. 
I should have given him greater credit even for that, if it had 
been strong enough to induce him to spare the eyes of a certain 
poet he once took prisoner, who was a knight besides. But he 
ordered the poet's eyes to be torn from his head, because he 
lad laughed at him in his verses ; and the poet, in the pain of 
that torture, dashed out his own brains against his prison wall. 
King Henry the First, was avaricious, revengeful, and so false 
that I suppose a man never lived whose word was less to be 
relied upon. 



CHAPTER XI. 

ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN. 

The king was no sooner dead, than all the plans and 
schemes he had labored at so long, and lied so much for, 
crumbled away like a hollow heap of sand. Stephen, whom he^ 
had never mistrusted or suspected, started up to claim the 
throne. 

Stephen was the son of Adela, the Conqueror's daughter, 
married to the Count of Blois. To Stephen, and to his brother 
Henry, the late king had been liberal ; making Henry Bishop 
of Winchester, and finding a good marriage for Stephen, and 
much enriching him. This did not prevent Stephen from 
hastily producing a false witness, a servant of the late king, to 
swear that the king had named him for his heir upon his death- 
bed. On this evidence the Archbishop of Canterbury crowned 
him The new king, so suddenly made, lost not a moment in 
seizing the royal treasure, and hiring foreign soldiers with some 
of it to protect his throne. 

If the dead king had even done as the false witness said, 
he would have had small right to will away the English people, 
like so many sheep or oxen, without their consent. But he 
had, in fact, bequeathed all his territory to Matilda : who, sup- 
ported by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, soon began to dispute 
the crown. Some of the powerful barons and priests took her 
side ; some took Stephen's ; all fortified their castles ; and 
again the miserable English people were involved in war, from 



ENGLAND UNDER MATILDA AND STEPHEN 69 

which they could never derive advantage whosoever was victo- 
rious, and in which all parties plundered, tortured, starved and 
ruined them. 

Five years had passed since the death of Henry the First, 
and during those five years there had been two terrible inva- 
sions by the people of Scotland under their King David, who 
was at last defeated with all his army, — when Matilda, attended 
by her brother Robert, and a large force, appeared in England 
to maintain her claim. A battle was fought between her troops 
and King Stephen's, at Lincoln ; in which the king himself was 
taken prisoner, after bravely fighting until his battle-axe and 
sword were broken, and was carried into strict confinement at 
Gloucester. Matilda then submitted herself to the priests, and 
the priests crowned her Queen of England. 

She did not long enjoy this dignity. The people of London 
had a great affection for Stephen ; many of the barons consid- 
ered it degrading to be ruled by a woman ; and the queen's 
temper was so haughty that she made innumerable enemies. 
The people of London revolted ; and in alliance with the troops 
of Stephen, besieged her at Winchester, where they took her 
brother Robert prisoner, whom, as her best soldier and chief 
general, she was glad to exchange for Stephen himself, who 
thus regained. his liberty. Then the long war went on afresh. 
Once she was pressed so hard in the Castle of Oxford, in the 
winter weather, when the snow lay thick upon the ground, that 
her only chance of escape was to dress herself all in white, and 
accompanied by no more than three faithful knights dressed in 
like manner, that their figures might not be seen from Ste- 
phen's camp as they passed over the snow, to steal away on 
foot, cross ~the frozen Thames, walk a long distance, and at last 
gallop away on horseback. All this she did, but to no great 
purpose then ; for, her brother dying while the struggle was yet 
going on, she at last withdrew to Normandy. 

In two or three years after her withdrawal her cause ap- 
peared in England afresh, in the person of her son Henry, 
young Plantagenet, who, at only eighteen years of age, was very 
powerful ; not only on account of his mother having resigned 
all Normandy to him, but also from his having married Elean- 
or, the divorced wife of the French king, a bad woman, who 
had great possessions in France. Louis, the French king, not 
relishing this arrangement, helped Eustace, King Stephen's 
son, to invade Normandy ; but Henry drove their united forces 
out of that country, and then returned here to assist his parti- 
lans, whom the king was then besieging at Wallingford upon 



70 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



the Thames. Here for two days, divided only by the river, the 
two armies lay encamped opposite to one another, — on the eve, 
as it seemed to all men, of another desperate fight, when the 
Earl of Arundel took heart, and said, " that it was not reason- 
able to prolong the unspeakable miseries of two kingdoms to 
minister to the ambition of two princes." 

Many other noblemen, repeating and supporting this when 
it was once uttered, Stephen and young Plantagenet went down, 
each to his own bank of the river, and held a conversation 
across it, in which they arranged a truce, very much to the 
dissatisfaction of Eustace, who swaggered away with some fol- 
lowers, and laid violent hands on the Abbey of St. Edmund's- 
Bury, where he presently died mad. The truce led to a sol- 
emn council at Winchester, in which it was agreed that Ste- 
phen should retain the crown, on condition of his declaring 
Heniy his successor : that William, another son of the king's, 
should inherit his father's rightful possessions ; and that all the 
crown- lands which Stephen had given away should be recalled, 
and all the castles he had permitted to be built demolished. 
Thus terminated the bitter war, which had now lasted fifteen 
years, and had again laid England waste. In the next year 
Stephen died, after a troubled reign of nineteen years. 

Although King Stephen was, for the time in which he lived, 
a humane and moderate man, with many excellent qualities ; 
and although nothing worse is known of him than his usurpa- 
tion of the crown, which he probably excused to himself by the 
consideration that King Henry the First was an usurper too, — • 
which was no excuse at all, — the people of England suffered 
more in these dread nineteen years than at any former period 
even of their suffering history. In the division of the nobility 
between the two rival claimants of the crown, and in the growth 
of what is called the Feudal System (which made the peasants 
the born vassals and mere slaves of the barons), every noble 
had his strong castle, where he reigned the cruel king of all the 
neighboring people. Accordingly, he perpetrated whatever 
cruelties he chose \ and never were worse cruelties committed 
Upon earth than in wretched England in those nineteen years. 

The writers who were living then describe them fearfully. 
They say that the castles were filled with devils rather than 
with men \ that the peasants, men and women, were put into 
dungeons for their gold and silver, were tortured with fire and 
smoke, were hung up by the thumbs, were hung up by the heels 
with great weights to their heads, were torn with jagged irons, 
killed with hunger, broken to death in narrow chests filled with 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. yi 

sharp-pointed stones, murdered in countless fiendish ways. In 
England there was no corn, no meat, no cheese, no butter, there 
were no tilled lands, no harvests. Ashes of burnt towns and 
dreary wastes were all that the traveller, fearful of the robbers 
who prowled abroad at all hours, would see in a long day's 
journey ; and from sunrise until night he would not come upon 
a home. 

The clergy sometimes suffered, and heavily too, from pil- 
lage ; but many of them had castles of their own, and fought 
in helmet and armor like the barons, and drew lots with other 
fighting men for their share of booty. The Pope (or Bishop of 
Rome), on King Stephen's resisting his ambition, laid England 
under an interdict at one period of this reign ; which means that 
he allowed no service to be performed in the churches, no 
couples to be married, no bells to be rung, no dead bodies to ba 
buried. Any man having the power to refuse these things, no 
matter whether he were called a pope or a poulterer, would ol 
course, have the power of afflicting numbers of innocent people. 
That nothing might be wanting to the miseries of King Ste- 
phen's time, the Pope threw in this contribution to the public 
store, — not very like the widow's contribution, as I think, when 
our Saviour sat in Jerusalem over against the treasury, "and 
«he threw in two mites which make a farthing." 



CHAPTER XII. 

england under henry the second. 

Part the First. 

Henry Plantagenet, when he was but twenty-one year^, 
old, quietly succeeded to the throne of England, according to 
his agreement made with the late king at Winchester. Six 
weeks after Stephen's death, he and his queen, Eleanor, were 
crowned in that city ; into which they rode on horseback in 
great state, side by side, amidst much shouting and rejoicing, 
and clashing of music, and strewing of flowers. 

The reign of King Henry the Second began well. The 
king had great possessions, and (what with his own rights, and 
what with those of hi§ wife") was Jord of one-third part pf 



72 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



France. He was a young man of vigor, ability, and resolution^ 
and immediately applied himself to remove some of the evils 
which had arisen in the last unhappy reign. He revoked all 
the grants of land that had been hastily made on either side 
during the late struggles ; he obliged numbers of disorderly 
soldiers to depart from England ; he reclaimed all the castles 
belonging to the crown ; and he forced the wicked nobles to 
pull down their own castles to the number of eleven hundred, 
in which such dismal cruelties had been inflicted on the people. 
The king's brother, Geoffrey, rose against him in France, while 
he was so well employed, and rendered it necessary for him to 
repair to that country ; where, after he had subdued and made 
a friendly arrangement with his brother (who did not live long), 
his ambition to increase his possessions involved him in a war 
with the French king, Louis, with whom he had been on such 
friendly terms, just before, that, to the French king's infant 
daughter, then a baby in the cradle, he had promised one of 
his little sons in marriage, who was a child of five years old. 
However, the war came to nothing at last, and the Pope made 
the two kings friends again. 

Now the clergy in the troubles of the last reign had gone 
on very ill indeed. There were all kinds of criminals among 
them, — murderers, thieves, and vagabonds ; and the worst of 
the matter was, that the good priests would not give up the bad 
priests to justice when they committed crimes, but persisted in 
sheltering and defending them. The king, well knowing that 
there could be no peace or rest in England while such things 
lasted, resolved to reduce the power of the clergy, and, when 
he had reigned seven years, found (as he considered) a good 
opportunity for doing so in the death of the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. " I will have for the new archbishop," thought the 
king, " a friend in whom I can trust, who will help me to hum- 
ble these rebellious priests, and have them dealt with when 
they do wrong as other men who do wrong are dealt with." So 
he resolved to make his favorite the new archbishop ; and this 
favorite was so extraordinary a man, and his story is so curious 
that I must tell you all about him. 

Once upon a time a worthy merchant of London, named 
Gilbert k Becket, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was 
taken prisoner by a Saracen lord. This lord, who treated him 
kindly, and not like a slave, had one fair daughter, who fell in 
love with the merchant, and who told him that she wanted to 
become a Christian, and was willing to marry him if they could 
fly to a Christian country. Th^ merchant returned her love 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. 73 

until he found an opportunity to escape, when he did not trou- 
ble himself about the Saracen lady, but escaped with his ser- 
vant Richard, who had been taken prisoner along with him, 
and arrived in England and forgot her. The Saracen lady, 
who was more loving than the merchant, left her father's house 
in disguise to follow him, and made her way under many hard- 
ships to the sea-shore. The merchant had taught her only 
two English words (for I suppose he must have learnt the 
Saracen tongue himself, and made love in that language), 
of which London was one, and his own name, Gilbert, the 
other. She went among the ships, saying, " London, Lon- 
don ! " over and over again, until the sailors understood that 
she wanted to find an English vessel that would carry her 
there ; so they showed her such a ship, and she paid for her 
passage with some of her jewels, and sailed away. Well, the 
merchant was sitting in his counting-house in London one day, 
when he heard a great noise in the street, and presently Richard 
came running in from the warehouse, with his eyes wide open 
and his breath almost gone, saying, " Master, master, here is 
the Saracen lady ! " The merchant thought Richard was mad \ 
but Richard said, " No, master ; as I live, the Saracen lady 
is going up and down the city, calling ' Gilbert, Gilbert ! ' " 
Then he took the merchant by the sleeve, and pointed out the 
window ; and there they saw her among the gables and water- 
spouts of the dark, dirty street, in her foreign dress, so forlorn, 
surrounded by a wondering crowd, and passing slowly along, 
calling " Gilbert, Gilbert ! " When the merchant saw her, and 
thought of the tenderness she had shown him in his captivity, 
and of her constancy, his heart was moved, and he ran down 
into the street ; and she saw him coming, and with a great cry 
fainted in his arms. They were married without loss of time, 
and Richard (who was an excellent man) danced with joy the 
whole day of the wedding ; and they all lived happy ever after- 
wards. 

This merchant and this Saracen lady had one son, Thomas 
k Becket. He it was who became the favorite of King Henry 
the Second. 

He had become chancellor, when the king thought of mak- 
ing him archbishop. He was clever, gay, well educated, brave ; 
had fought in several battles in France \ had defeated a French 
knight in single combat, and brought his horse away as a token 
of the victory. He lived in a noble palace, he was the tutor of 
the young Prince Henry, he was served by one hundred and 
forty knights, his riches were immense. The king once sent 



^4 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

him as his ambassador to France ; and the French people be 
holding in what state he travelled, cried out in the streets, 
" How splendid must the king of England be, when this is only 
the chancellor ! " They had good reason to wonder at the 
magnificence of Thomas a Becket : "for when he entered a 
French town, his procession was headed by two hundred and 
fifty singing boys ; then came his hounds in couples ; then eight 
wagons, each drawn by five horses, driven by five drivers ; two 
of the wagons filled with strong ale to be given away to the 
people ; four with his gold and silver plate and stately clothes; 
two with the dresses of his numerous servants. Then came 
twelve horses, each with a monkey on his back; then a train 
of people bearing shields, and leading fine war-horses, splen- 
didly equipped ; then falconers with hawks upon their wrists ; 
then a host of knights and gentlemen and priests ; then the 
chancellor, with his brilliant garments flashing in the sun, and 
all the people capering and shouting with delight. 

The king was well pleased with all this, thinking that it only 
made himself the more magnificent to have so magnificent a 
favorite ; but he sometimes jested with the chancellor upon his 
splendor too. Once when they were riding together through the 
streets of London in hard winter weather, they saw a shivering 
old man in rags. " Look at the poor object," said the king. 
" Would it not be a charitable act to give that aged man a com- 
fortable warm cloak ? " '' Undoubtedly it would," said Thomas 
a Becket ; " and you do well, sir, to think of such Christain du- 
ties." " Come," cried the king, " then give him your cloak ! " 
It was made of rich crimson trimmed with ermine. The king 
tried to pull it off; the chancellor tried to keep it on. Both 
were near rolling from their saddles in the mud, when the chan- 
cellor submitted, and the king gave the cloak to the old beggar, 
much to the beggar's astonishment, and much to the merriment 
of all the courtiers in attendance ; for courtiers are not only 
eager to laugh when the king laughs, but they really do enjoy 
a laugh against a favorite. 

"I will make," thought King Henry the Second, "this 
chancellor of mine, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. He will then be the head of the Church, and, being de- 
voted to me, will help me to correct the Church. He has always 
upheld my power against the power of the clergy, and once 
publicly told some bishops (I remember) that men of the 
Church were equally bound to me with men of the sword 
Thomas k Becket is the man, of all other men in England, to 
help me in my great design." So the king, regardless of alj 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. 



75 



objection, either that he was a fighting man, or a lavish man, 
or a courtly man, or a man of pleasure, or anything but a likel} 
man for the office, made him archbishop accordingly. 

Now, Thomas k Becket was proud, and loved to be famous. 
He was already famous for the pomp of his life,— for his riches, 
his gold and silver plate, his wagons, horses, and attendants. 
He could do no more in that way than he had done ; and, being 
fired of that kind of fame (which is a poor one), he longed to 
have his name celebrated for something else. Nothing, he knew, 
would render him so famous in the world as the setting of hi/ 
utmost power and ability against the utmost power and ability 
of the king. He resolved with the whole strength of his mind 
to do it. 

He may have had some secret grudge against the king be- 
sides. The king may have offended his proud humor at some 
time or other, for anything I know. I think it likely, because 
it is a common thing for kings, princes, and other great people, 
to try the tempers of their favorites rather severely. Even the 
little affair of the crimson cloak must have been anything but a 
pleasant one to a haughty man. Thomas k Becket knew better 
than any one in England what the king expected of him. In 
all his sumptuous life, he had never yet been in a position to 
disappoint the king. He could take up that proud stand now, 
as head of the Church ; and he determineci that it should be 
written in history, ejther that he subdued the king, or that the 
king subdued him. 

So of a sudden he completely altered the whoh manner of 
his life. He turned off all his brilliant followers, ate coarse 
food, drank bitter water, wore next his skin sack-cloth covered 
with dirt and vermin (for it was then thought very religious to 
be very dirty), flogged his back to punish himself, lived chiefly 
in a little cell, washed the feet of thirteen poor people every 
day, and looked as miserable as he possibly could. If he had 
put twelve hundred monkeys on horseback instead of twelve, 
and had gone in procession with eight thousand wagons instead 
of eight, he could not have half astonished the people so much 
as by this great change. It soon caused him to be more talked 
about as an archbishop than he had been as a chancellor. 

The king was very angry ; and was made still more so, when 
the new archbishop, claiming various estates from the nobles as 
being rightfully church property, required the king himself, for 
the same reason, to give up Rochester Castle, and Rochester 
City too. Not satisfied with this, he declared that no powef 
but himself should appoint a priest to any church in the -part of 



76 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

England over which he was archbishop, and when a certain 
gentleman of Kent made such an appointment, as he claimed 
to have the right to do, Thomas k Becket excommunicated 
him. 

Excommunication was, next to the interdict I told you of at 
the close of the last chapter, the great weapon of the clergy. It 
consisted in declaring the person who was excommunicated an 
outcast from the church and from all religious offices ; and in 
cursing him all over, from the top of his head to the sole of his 
foot, whether he was standing up, lying down, sitting, kneeling, 
walking, running, hopping, jumping, gaping, coughing, sneezing, 
or whatever else he was doing. This unchristian nonsense 
would of course have made no sort of difference to the person 
cursed, — who could say his prayers at home if he were shut out 
of church, and whom none but God could judge,— but for the 
fears and superstitions of the people, who avoided excommuni- 
cated persons, and made their lives unhappy. So the king said 
to the new archbishop, " Take off this excommunication from 
this gentleman of Kent ; " to which the archbishop replied, " I 
shall do no such thing." 

The quarrel went on. A priest in Worcestershire committed 
a most dreadful murder that aroused the horror of the whole 
nation. The king demanded to have this wretch delivered up, 
to be tried in the same court and in the same way as any other 
murderer. The archbishop refused, and kept him in the bishop's 
prison. The king, holding a solemn assembly in Westminster 
Hall, demanded that in future all priests found guilty before 
their bishops of crimes against the law of the land, should be 
considered priests no longer, and should be delivered over to 
the law of the land for punishment. The archbishop again re- 
fused. The king required to know whether the clergy would 
obey the ancient customs of the country ? Every priest there, 
but one, said, after Thomas k Becket, " Saving my order." 
This really meant that they would only obey those customs 
when they did not interfere with their own claims ; and the king 
went out of the hall in great wrath. 

Some of the clergy began to be afraid, now, that they were 
going too far. Though Thomas a Becket was otherwise as un- 
moved as .Westminster Hall, they prevailed upon him, for the 
sake of their fears, to go to the king at Woodstock, and promise 
to observe the ancient customs of the country, without saying 
anything about his order. The king received this submission 
favorably, and summoned a great council of the clergy to meet 
at the Gastle of Clarendon, by Salisbury But when the councii 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. 77 

met, the archbishop again insisted on the words, "Saving mj 
order ; " and he still insisted, though lords entreated him, and 
priests wept before him and knelt to him, and an adjoining 
room was thrown open, filled with armed soldiers of the king, 
to threaten him. At length he gave way, for that time ; and 
the ancient customs (which included what the king had demanded 
in vain) were stated in writing, and were signed and sealed by 
the chief of the clergy, and were called the Constitutions of 
Clarendon. 

The quarrel went on, for all that. The archbishop tried to 
see the king. The king would not see him. The archbishop 
tried to escape from England. The sailors on the coast would 
launch no boat to take him away. Then he again resolved to 
do his worst in opposition to the king, and began openly to set 
the ancient customs at defiance. 

The king summoned him before a great council at North- 
ampton, where he accused him of high treason, and made a 
claim against him, which was not a just one, for an enormous 
sum of money. Thomas 'k Becket was alone against the whole 
assembly ; and the very bishops advised him to resign his office, 
and abandon his contest with the king. His great anxiety and 
agitation stretched him on a sick bed for two days, but he was 
still undaunted. He went to the adjourned council, carrying a 
great cross in his right hand, and sat down, holding it erect 
before him. The king angrily retired into an inner room. The 
whole assembly angrily retired, and left him there ; but there he 
sat. The bishops came out again in a body, and renounced him 
as a traitor. He only said, " I hear ! " and sat there still. They 
retired again into an inner room, and his trial proceeded with- 
out him. By and by, the Earl of Leicester, heading the barons, 
came out to read his sentence. He refused to hear it, denied 
the power of the court, and said he would refer his cause to the 
pope. As he walked out of the hall, with the cross in his hand, 
some of those present picked up rushes, — rushes were strewn 
upon the floors in those days by way of carpet, — and threw them 
at him. He proudly turned his head, and said, that, were he 
not archbishop, he would chastise those cowards with the sword 
he had known how to use in bygone days. He then mounted 
his horse, and rode away, cheered and surrounded by the com- 
mon people, to whom he threw open his house that night and 
gave a supper, supping with them himself. That same night he 
secretly departed from the town ; and so, travelling by night and 
hiding by day, and calling himself " Brother Dearman," got 
away, not without difficulty, to Flanders. 



y8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAI^D, 

The struggle still went on. The angry king took possession 
of the revenues of the archbishopric, and banished all the rela- 
tions and servants of Thomas k Becket, to the number of foul 
hundred. The pope and the French king both protected him^ 
and an abbey was assigned for his residence. Stimulated by 
this support, Thomas a Becket, on a great festival day, formally 
proceeded to a great churcti crowded with people, and, going 
up into the pulpit, publicl]^ cursed and excommunicated all who 
had supported the Constitutions of Clarendon, mentioning many 
English noblemen by name, and not distantly hinting at the king 
of England himself. 

When intelligence of this new affront was carried to the king 
in his chamber, his passion was so furious, that he tore his 
clothes, and rolled like a madman on his bed of straw and 
rushes. But he was soon "up and doing. He ordered all the 
ports and coasts of England to be narrowly watched, that no 
letters of interdict might be brought into the kingdom ; and sent 
messengers and bribes to the pope's palace at Rome. Mean- 
while, Thomas k Becket, for his part, was not idle at Rome, but 
constantly employed his utmost arts in his own behalf. Thus 
the contest stood, i ntil there was peace between France and 
England (which had been for some time at war), and until the 
two children of the two kings were married in celebration of it. 
Then the French king brought about a meeting between Henry 
and his old favorite, so long his enemy. 

Even then, though Thomas k Becket knelt before the king, 
he was obstinate and immovable as to those words about his 
order. King Louis of France was weak enough in his venera- 
tion for Thomas k Becket, and such men ; but this was a little 
too mrck for him. He said that k Becket " wanted to be 
greater than the saints, and better than St. Peter," and rode 
away from him with the King of England. His poor French 
Majesty asked k Becket's pardon for so doing, however, soon 
afterv/ards, and cut a very pitiful figure. 

At last, and after a world of trouble, it came to this. There 
was another meeting on French ground between King Henry 
and Thomas a Becket ; and it was agreed that Thomas k Becket 
should be Archbishop of Canterbury, according to the customs 
of former archbishops, and that the king should put him in pos- 
session of the revenues of that post. And now, indeed, you 
might suppose the struggle at an end, and Thomas k Becket at 
rest. No, not even yet ; for Thomas k Becket hearing, by some 
means, that King Henry, when he was in dread of his kingdom 
being placed under an interdict, had had his eldest son, Prince 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. y^ 

Henry, secretly crowned, not only persuaded the pope to sus* 
pend the Archbishop of York, who had performed that cere- 
mony, and to excommunicate the bishops who had assisted at 
it, but sent a messenger of his own into England, in spite of all 
the king's precautions along the coast, who delivered the letters 
of excommunication into the bishop's own hands. Thomas k 
Becket then came over to England himself, after an absence of 
seven years. He was privately warned that it was dangerous to 
come, and that an ireful knight, named Ranulf de Broc, had 
threatened that he should not live to eat a loaf of bread in 
England ; but he came. 

The common people received him well, and marched about 
with him in a soldierly way, armed with such rustic weapons as 
they could get. He tried to see the young prince who had once 
been his pupil, but was prevented. He hoped for some little 
support among the nobles and priests, but found none. He 
made the most of the peasants who attended him, and feasted 
them, and went from Canterbury to Harrow-on-the-Hill, and 
from Harrow-on-the-Hill back to Canterbury, and on Christmas 
Day preached in the cathedral there, and told the people in his 
sermon that he had come to die among them, and that it was 
likely he would be murdered. He had no fear, however, or, if 
he had any he had much more obstinacy ; for he, then and there, 
excommunicated three of his enemies, of whom Ranulf de Broc, 
the ireful knight, was one. 

As men in general had no fancy for being cursed, in their 
sitting and walking, and gaping and sneezing, and all the rest 
of it, it was very natural m the persons so freely excommunicated 
to complain to the king. It was equally natural in the king, 
who had hoped that this troublesome opponent was at last 
quieted, to fall into a mighty rage when he heard of these new 
affronts ; and, on the Archbishop of York telling him that he 
never could hope for rest while Thomas a Becket lived, to cry 
out hastily before his court, " Have I no one here who will 
deliver me from this man ? " There were four knights present, 
who, hearing the king's words, looked at one another, and went 
out. 

The names of these knights were Reginald Fitzurse, William 
Tracy, Hugh de Morville, and Richard Brito ; three of whom 
had been in the train of Thomas a Becket in the old days of his 
splendor. They rode away on horseback, in a very secret man- 
ner, and on the third day after Christmas Day arrived at Salt- 
wood House, not far from Canterbury, which belonged to the 
family of Ranulf de Broc. They quietly collected some followers 



So ^ CHILD'S msTORY OP ENGLAND. 

here, in case they should need any ; and, proceeding to Canteh 
bury, suddenly appeared (the four knights and twelve men) be* 
fore the archbishop, in his own house, at two o'clock in the 
afternoon. They neither bowed nor spoke, but sat down on the 
floor in silence, staring at the archbishop. 

Thomas a Becket said, at length, "What do you want ?f' 

" We want," said Reginald Fitzurse, " the excommunication 
taken from the bishops, and you to answer for your offences to 
the king." 

Thomas k Becket defiantly replied, that the power of the 
clergy was above the power of the king ; that it was not for such 
men as they were to threaten him ; that, if he were threatened 
by all the swords in England, he would never yield. 

" Then we will do more than threaten ! " said the knights. 
And they went out with the twelve men, and put on their armor, 
and drew their shining swords, and came back. 

His servants, in the mean time, had shut up and barred the 
great gate of the palace. At first, the knights tried to shatter 
it with their battle-axes ; but, being shown a window by which 
they could enter, they let the gate alone, and climbed in that 
way. While they were battering at the door, the attendants of 
Thomas k Becket had implored him to take refuge in the 
cathedral ; in which, as a sanctuary or sacred place, they 
thought the knights would dare to do no violent deed. He told 
them, again and again, that he would not stir. Hearing the 
distant voices of the monks singing the evening service, how- 
ever, he said it was now his duty to attend ; and therefore, and 
for no other reason, he would go. 

There was a near way between his palace and the cathedral, 
by some beautiful old cloisters which you may yet see. He 
went into the cathedral without any hurry, and having the cross 
carried before him as usual. When he was safely there, his 
servants would have fastened the door, but he said, No ; it was 
the house of God, and not a fortress. 

As he spoke, the shadow of Reginald Fitzurse appeared in 
the cathedral doorway, darkening the little light there was out- 
side on the dark winter evening. This knight said, in a strong 
voice, " Follow me, loyal servants of the king ! " The rattle of 
the armor of the other knights echoed through the cathedral, as 
they came clashing in. 

It was so dark in the lofty aisles and among the stately pil' 
lars of the church, and there were so many hiding-places in the 
crypt below and in the narrow passages above, that Thomas ^ 
Becket might even at that pass have saved himself if he would 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. gl 

But he would not. He told the monks resolutely that he would 
not. And though they all dispersed, and left him there with 
no ether follower than Edward Gryme, his faithful cross-bearer, 
he was as firm then as ever he had been in his life. 

The knights came on through the darkness, making a ter- 
rib'le noise with their armed tread upon the stone pavement of 
the church. " Where is the traitor .? " they cried out. He made 
no answer. But when they cried, " Where is the archbishop t " 
he said, proudly, " I am here ! " and came out of the shade, and 
s'.ood before them. 

The knights had no desire to kill him, if they could rid the 
king and themselves of him by any other means. They told 
him he must either fly or go with them. He said he would do 
neither ; and he threw William Tracy off with such force, when 
he took hold of his sleeve, that Tracy reeled again. By his re- 
proaches and his steadiness, he so incensed them, and exasper- 
ated their fierce humor, that Reginald Fitzurse, whom he called 
by an ill name, said " Then die ! " and struck at his head. But 
the faithful Edward Gryme put out his arm, and there received 
the main force of the blow, so that it only made his master 
bleed. Another voice from among the knights again called to 
Thomas ^ Becket to fly ; but with his blood running down his 
face, and his hands clasped, and his head bent, he commended 
himself to God, and stood firm. Then they cruelly killed him, 
close to the altar of St. Bennet ; and his body fell upon the 
pavement, which was dirtied with his blood and brains. 

It is an awful thing to think of the murdered mortal, who 
had so showered his curses about, lying all disfigured in the 
church, where a few lamps here and there were but red specks 
on a pall of darkness ; and to think of the guilty knights riding 
away on horseback, looking over "^Jieir shoulders at the dim 
cathedral, and remembering what they had left inside. 

Part the Second. 

When the king heard how Thomas k Becket had lost his 
life in Canterbury Cathedral, through the ferocity of the four 
knights, he was filled with dismay. Some have supposed that 
when the king spoke those hasty words, " Have I no one here 
who will deliver me from this man ? " he wished and meant 
k Becket to be slain. But few things are more unlikely ; for, 
besides that the king was not naturally cruel (though very 
passionate), he was wise, and must have known full well what 
any stupid man in his dominions must have known, namely^ 



82 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

that such a murder would rouse the pope and the whole Church 
against him. 

He sent respectful messengers to the pope, to represent his 
innocence (except in having uttered the hasty words) ; and he 
swore solemnly and publicly to his innocence, and contrived in 
time to make his peace. As to the four guilty knights, ivho 
fled into Yorkshire, and never again dared to show themselves 
at court, the pope excommunicated them ; and they lived miser- 
:ably for some time, shunned by all their countrymen. At last 
they went humbly to Jerusalem, as a penance, and there died 
and were buried. 

It happened fortunately for the pacifying of the pope, that 
an opportunity arose very soon after the murder of h. Becket, 
for the king to declare his power in Ireland ; which was an ac- 
ceptable undertaking to the pope, as the Irish, who had been 
converted to Christianity by one Patricius (otherwise St. Patrick) 
long ago, before any pope existed, considered that the pope had 
nothing at all to do with them, or they with the pope, and ac- 
cordingly refused to pay him Peter's Pence, or that tax of a 
penny a house, which I have elsewhere mentioned. The king's 
opportunity arose in this way. 

The Irish were, at that time, as barbarous a people as you 
can well imagine. They were continually quarrelling and fight- 
ing, cutting one another's throats, slicing one another's noses, 
burning one another's houses, carrying away one another's 
wives, and committing all sorts of violence. The country was 
divided into five kingdoms, — Desmond, Thomond, Connaught, 
Ulster, and Leinster, — each governed by a separate king, of 
whom one claimed to be the chief of the rest. Now one of these 
kings, named Dermond MacMurrough (a wild kind of name, 
spelt in more than one wild kind of way), had carried off the 
wife of a friend of his, and concealed her on an island in a bog. 
The friend, resenting this (though it was quite the custom of 
the country), complained to the chief king, and, with the chief 
king's help, drove Dermond MacMurrough out of his do- 
minions. Dermond came over to England for revenge ; and 
offered to hold his realm as a vassal of King Henry, if King 
Henry would help him to regain it. The king consented to 
these terms ; but only assisted him with what were then called 
letters-patent, authorizing any English subjects, who were so 
disposed, to enter into his service, and aid his cause. 

There was at Bristol a certain Earl Richard de Clare, called 
Strongbow, of no very good character, needy and desperate, 
and ready for anything that offered him a chance of improving 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. %2, 

his fortunes. There were, in South Wales, two other broken 
knights of the same good-for-nothing sort, called Robert Fitz- 
Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald. These three, each with a 
small band of followers, took up Dermond's cause ; and it v/as 
agreed, that, if it proved successful, Strongbow would marry 
Dermond's daughter Eva, and be declared his heir. 

The trained English followers of these knights were so 
superior in all the discipline of battle to the Irish, that they 
beat them against immense superiority of numbers. In one 
fight, early in the war, they cut off three hundred heads and 
laid them before MacMurrough, who turned them every one up 
with his hands, rejoicing, and coming to one which was the 
head of a man whom he had much disliked, grasped it by the 
hair and ears, and tore off the nose and lips with his teeth. 
You may judge from this what kind of a gentleman an Irish 
king in those times was. The captives, all through this war, 
were horribly treated ; the victorious party making nothing of 
breaking their limbs, and casting them into the sea from the 
tops of high rocks. It was in the midst of the miseries and 
cruelties attendant on the taking of Waterford, where the dead 
lay piled in the streets, and the filthy gutters ran with blood, that 
Strongbow married Eva. An odious marriage company those 
mounds of corpses must have made, I think, and one quite 
worthy of the young lady's father. 

He died, after Waterford and Dublin had been taken, and 
various successes achieved ; and Strongbow became king of 
Leinster. Now came King Henry's opportunity. To restrain 
the growing power of Strongbow, he himself repaired to Dublin, 
as Strongbow's royal master, and deprived him of his kingdom, 
but confirmed him in the enjoyment of great possessions. The 
king, then holding state in Dublin, received the homage of 
nearly all the Irish kings and chiefs, and so came home again 
with a great addition to his reputation as Lord of Ireland, and 
with a new claim on the favor of the pope. And now their re- 
conciliation was completed, — more easily and mildly by the 
pope than the king might have expected, I think. 

At this period of his reign, when his troubles seemed so 
few and his prospects so bright, those domestic miseries began 
which gradually made the king the most unhappy of men, 
reduced his great spirit, wore away his health, and broke his 
heart. 

He had four sons. Henry, now aged eighteen, — his secret 
crowning of whom had given such offence to Thomas a Becket ; 
Richard, aged sixteen ; Geoffrev. fifteen ; and John, his favorite, 



84 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

a young boy whom the courtiers named Lackland, because h« 
had no inheritance, but to whom the king meant to give the 
Lordship of Ireland. All these misguided boys, in their turn^ 
were unnatural sons to him, and unnatural brothers to each 
other. Prince Henry, stimulated by the French king, and by 
his bad mother. Queen Eleanor, began the undutiful history. 

First, he demanded that his young wife, Margaret, the 
French king's daughter, should be crowned as well as he. 
His father, the king, consented, and it was done. It was no 
sooner done, than he demanded to have a part of his father's 
dominions during his father's life. This being refused, he 
made off from his father in the night, with his bad heart full of 
bitterness, and took refuge at the French king's court. Within 
a day or two, his brothers Richard and Geoffrey followed. 
Their mother tried to join them, escaping in man's clothes ] 
but she was seized by King Henry's men, and immured in 
prison, where she lay, deservedly, for sixteen years. Every 
day, however, some grasping English nobleman, to whom the 
king's protection of his people from their avarice and oppres- 
sion had given offence, deserted him,, and joined the princes. 
Every day he heard some fresh intelligence of the princes 
levying armies against him ; of Prince Henry's wearing a 
crown before his own ambassadors at the P'rench court, and 
being called the Junior King of England \ of all the princes 
swearing never to make peace with him, their father, without 
the consent and approval of the barons of France. But, with 
his fortitude and energy unshaken, King Henry met the shock 
of these disasters with a resolved and cheerful face.' He 
called upon all royal fathers who had sons to help him, for his 
cause was theirs ; he hired, out of his riches, twenty thousand 
men to fight the false French king, who stirred his own blood 
against him ; and he carried on the war with such vigor, that 
Louis soon proposed a conference to treat for peace. 

The conference was held beneath an old wide-spreading 
green elm-tree, upon a plain in France. It led to nothing. 
The war recommenced. Prince Richard began his fighting 
career by leading an army against his father : but his father 
beat him and his army back ; and thousands of his men would 
have rued the day in which they fought in such a wicked cause, 
had not the king received news of an invasion of England by 
the Scots, and promptly come home through a great storm to 
repress it. And whether he really began to fear that he suf- 
fered these troubles because a Becket had been murdered ; or 
whether he wished to rise, in favor pf his own peoplcj of whon? 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. gj 

many believed that even \ Beckst's senseless tomb could work 
miracles, I don't know : but the king no sooner landed in 
England, than he went straight to Canterbury ; and when he 
came within sight of the distant cathedral, he dismounted from 
his horse, took off his shoes, and walked with bare and bleed- 
ing feet to a Becket's grave. There he lay down on the 
ground, lamenting, in the presence of many people ; and by 
and by he went into the Chapter House, and, removing his 
clothes from his back and shoulders, submitted himself to be 
beaten with knotted cords (not beaten very hard, I daresay 
though) by eighty priests, one after another. It chanced, that, 
on the very day when the king made this curious exhibition of 
himself, a complete victory was obtained over the Scots ; which 
very much delighted the priests, who said that it was won 
because of his great example of repentance. For the priests 
in general had found out, since a Becket's death, that they 
admired him of all things, though they hated him very cordially 
when he was alive. 

The Earl of Flanders, who was at the head of the base 
conspiracy of the king's undutiful sons and their foreign 
friends, took the opportunity of the king being thus employed 
at home to lay siege to Rouen, the capital of Normandy. But 
the king, who was extraordinarily quick and active in all his 
movements, was at Rouen too, before it was supposed possible 
that he could have left England ; and there he so defeated the 
said Earl of Flanders, that the conspirators proposed peace, 
and his bad sons, Henry and Geoffrey, submitted. Richard 
resisted for six weeks ; but, being beaten out of castle after 
castle, he at last submitted too, and his father forgave him. 

To forgive these unworthy princes was only to afford them 
breathing-time for new faithlessness. They were so false, dis- 
loyal, and dishonorable, that they were no more to be trusted 
than common thieves. In the very next year. Prince Henry 
rebelled again, and was again forgiven. In eight years more, 
Prince Richard rebelled against his elder brother ; and Prince 
Geoffrey infamously said that the brothers could never agree 
well together, unless they were united against their father. In 
the very next year after their reconciliation by the king, Prince 
Henry again rebelled against his father ; and again submitted, 
swearing to be true, and was again forgiven ; and again re« 
belled with Geoffrey. 

But the end of this perfidious prince was come. He fell 
sick at a French town ; and his conscience terribly reproaching 
him with his baseness, he sent messengers to the king his 



86 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

father, imploring him to come and see him, and to forgive him 
for the last time on his bed of death. The generous king, who 
had a royal and forgiving mind towards his children always, 
would have gone ; but this prince had been so unnatural, that 
the noblemen about the king suspected treachery, and repre* 
sented to him that he could not safely trust his life with such 
a traitor, though his own eldest son. Therefore the king sent 
him a ring from off his finger as a token of forgiveness ; and 
when the prince had kissed it with much grief and many tears, 
and had confessed to those around him how bad and wicked 
and undutiful a son he had been, he said to the attendant 
priests, " O, tie a rope about my body, and draw me out of 
bed, and lay me down upon a bed of ashes, that I may die 
with prayers to God in a repentant manner ! " And so he 
died, at twenty-seven years old. 

Three years afterwards, Prince Geoffrey, being unhorsed at 
a tournament, had his brains trampled out by a crowd of horses 
passing over him. So there only remained Prince Richard, 
and Prince John, — who had grown to be a young man now, 
and had solemnly sworn to be faithful to his father. Richard 
soon rebelled again, encouraged by his friend the French king, 
Philip the Second (son of Louis, v/ho was dead), and soon sub- 
mitted, and was again forgiven, swearing on the New Testa- 
ment never to rebel again ; and, in another year or so, rebelled 
again, and in the presence of his father, knelt down on his 
knee before the King of France, and did the French king hom- 
age, and declared that with his aid he would possess himself 
by force, of all his father's French dominions. 

And yet this Richard called himself a soldier of our 
Saviour ! And yet this Richard wore the cross, which the 
kings of France and England had both taken, in the previous 
years, at a brotherly meeting underneath the old wide-spread- 
ing elm-tree on the plain, when they had sworn (like him) to 
devote themselves to a new Crusade, for the love and honor 
of the truth ! 

Sick at heart, wearied out by the falsehood of his sons, and 
almost ready to lie down and die, the unhappy king, who had 
so long stood firm, began to fail. But the pope, to his honor, 
supported him ; and obliged the French king and Richard, 
thour 'i successful in fight, to treat for peace. Richard wanted 
to be crowned king of England, and pretended that he wanted 
to be married (which he really did not) to the French king's 
sister, his promised wife, whom King Henry detained in Eng- 
land. King Henry wanted, on the other hand, that th# 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SECOND. gy 

French king's sister should be married to his favorite son, 
John; the only one of his sons (he said) who had never re- 
belled against him. At last King Henry, deserted by his 
nobles one by one, distressed, exhausted, broken-hearted, con- 
sented to establish peace. 

One final heavy sorrow was reserved for him, even yet. 
When they brought him the proposed treaty of peace in writing, 
as he lay very ill in bed, they brought him also the list of the 
deserters from their allegiance, whom he was required to 
pardon. The first name upon this list was John, his favorite 
son, in whom he had trusted to the last. 

" O John ! child of my heart ! " exclaimed the king, in a 
great agony of mind ; " O John ! whom I have loved the best ; 

John ! for whom I have contended through these many 
troubles, — have you betrayed me too ! " And then he lay down 
with a heavy groan, and said, " Now let the world go as it will ; 

1 care for nothing more." 

After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the 
French town of Chinon, — a town he had been fond of during 
many years. But he was fond of no place now ; it was too true 
that he could care for nothing more upon this earth. He 
wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the 
children whom he left behind him, and expired. 

As one hundred years before, the servile followers of the 
court had abandoned the Conqueror in the hour of his death, 
so they now abandoned his descendant. The very body was 
stripped, in the plunder of the royal chamber ; and it was not 
easy to find the means of carrying it for burial to the abbey- 
church of Fontevraud. 

Richard was said in after years, by way of flattery, to have 
the heart of a lion. It would have been far better, I think, to 
have the heart of a man. His heart, whatever it was, had 
cause to beat remorsefully within his breast, when he came^ 
as he did — into the solemn abbey, and looked on his dead 
father's uncovered face. His heart, whatever it was, had been 
a black and perjured heart, in all its dealings with the deceased 
king, and more deficient in a single touch of tenderness than 
any wild beast's in the forest. 

There is a pretty story told of this reign, called the story of 
Fair Rosamond. It relates how the king doted on Fair Rosa- 
mond, who was the loveliest girl in all the world ; and how he 
had a beautiful bower built for her in a park at Woodstock ; 
and how it was erected in a labyrinth, and could only be found 
by a clew of silk. How the bad Queen Eleanor, becoming 



gg A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

lealous of Fair Rosamond, found out the secret of the clew^ 
and one day appeared before her, with a dagger and a cup of 
poison, and left her to the choice between those deaths. How 
Fair Rosamond, after shedding many piteous tears, and offering 
many useless prayers to the cruel queen, took the poiscn, and 
fell dead in the midst of the beautiful bower, while the un- 
conscious birds sang gayly all around her. 

Now, there was a fair Rosamond, and she was (I dare say) 
the loveliest girl in all the world, and the king was certainly very 
fond of her, and the bad Queen Eleanor was certainly made 
jealous. But I am afraid — I say afraid, because I like the 
story so much — that there was no bower, no labyrinth, no 
silken clew, no dagger, no poison. I am afraid Fair Rosamond 
retired to a nunnery near Oxford, and died there peaceably \ 
her sister-nuns hanging a silken drapery over her tomb, and 
often dressing it with flowers, in remembrance of the youth and 
beauty that had enchanted the king when he, too, was young, 
and when his life lay fair before him. 

It was dark and ended now; faded and gone. Henry 
Plantagenet lay quiet in the abbey-church of Fontevraud, in the 
fifty-seventh year of his age, — never to be completed, — after 
governing England well for nearly thirty-five years. 



CHAPTER Xni. 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, CALLED THE LION-HEART. 

In the year of our Lord 1189, Richard of the Lion Heart, 
succeeded to the throne of King Henry the Second, whose 
paternal heart he had done so much to break. He had been, 
as we have seen, a rebel from his boyhood ; but the moment he 
became a king against whom others might rebel, he found out 
that rebellion was a great wickedness. In the heat of this 
pious discovery, he punished all the leading people who had 
befriended him against his father. He could scarcely have 
done anything that would have been a better instance of his 
real nature, or a better warning to fawners and parasites not to 
trust in lion-hearted princes. 

He likewise put his late father's treasurer in chains, and 
locked him up in a dungeon from which he was not set free 
until he had relinquished, not only all the crown treasure, but 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, ETC. 89 

all his own money too. So Richard certainly got the lion's 
share of the wealth of this wretched treasurer, whether he had 
a lion's heart or not. 

He was crowned king of England, with great pomp, at 
Westminster; walking to the cathedral under a silken canopy 
stretched on the tops of four lances, each carried by a great 
lord. On the day of his coronation, a dreadful murdering of 
the Jews took place, which seems to have given great delight 
to numbers of savage persons calling themselves Christians. 
The king had issued a proclamation forbidding the Jews (who 
were generally hated, though they were the most useful mer- 
chants in England) to appear at the ceremony; but as they 
had assembled in London from all parts, bringing presents to 
show their respect for the new sovereign, some of them ven- 
tured down to Westminster Hall with their gifts, which were 
very readily accepted. It is supposed now that some noisy 
fellow in the crowd, pretending to be a very delicate Christian, 
set up a howl at this, and struck a Jew who was trying to get 
in at the hall-door with his present. A riot arose ; the Jews 
who had got into the hall were driven forth : and some of the 
rabble cried out that the new king had commanded the un- 
believing race to be put to death. Thereupon, the crowd 
rushed through the narrow streets of the city, slaughtering all 
the Jews they met ; and when they could find no more out of 
doors (on account of their having fled to their houses, and 
fastened themselves in), they ran madly about, breaking open 
all the houses where the Jews lived, rushing in and stabbing or 
spearing them, sometimes even flinging old people and children 
out of window into blazing fires they had lighted up below. 
This great cruelty lasted four-and-twenty hours, and only three 
men were punished for it. Even they forfeited their lives, not 
for murdering and robbing the Jews, but for burning the houses 
of some Christians. 

King Richard, who was a strong, restless, burly man, with 
one idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome 
idea of breaking the heads of other men, was mightily im- 
r)atient to go on a crusade to the Holy Land, with a great 
army. As great armies could not be raised to go, even to the 
Holy Land, without a great deal of money, he sold the crown- 
domains, and even the high offices of state ; recklessly appoint- 
ing noblemen to rule over his English subjects, not because they 
were fit to govern, but because they could pay high for the pri- 
vilege. In this way, and by selling pardons at a dear rate, and 
by varieties of avarice and oppression, he scraped together a 



^O A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAISTD. 

large treasure. He then appointed two bishops to take cara 
of his kingdom in his absence, and gave great powers and pos- 
sessions to his brother John, to secure his friendship. John 
would rather have been made Regent of England ; but he was 
a sly man, and friendly to the expedition, saying to himself, no 
doubt, " The more fighting, the more chance of my brother 
being killed j and when he is killed, then I become King John ! " 

Before the newly levied army departed from England, the 
recruits and the general populace distinguished themselves by 
astonishing cruelties on the unfortunate Jews, whom, in many 
large towns, they murdered by hundreds in the most horrible 
manner. 

At York, a large body of Jews took refuge in the castle, in 
the absence of its governor, after the wives and children of 
many of them had been slain before their eyes. Presently came 
the governor, and demanded admission. " How can we give it 
thee, O Governor ! " said the Jews upon the walls, *' when, if 
we open the gate so much as the width of a foot, the roaring 
crowd behind thee will press in and kill us." 

Upon this the unjust governor became angry, and told the 
people that he approved of their killing those Jews, and a mis- 
chievous maniac of a friar, dressed all in white, put himself at 
the head of the assault, and they assaulted the castle for three 
days. 

Then said Jocen, the head Jew (who was a rabbi or priest) 
to the rest, " Brethren, there is no hope for us with the Chris- 
tians who are hammering at the gates and walls, and who must 
soon break in. As we and our wives and children must 
die, either by Christian hands or by our own, let it be by our 
own. Let us destroy by fire what jewels and other treasure 
we have here, then fire the castle, and then perish." 

A few could not resolve to do this, but the greater part 
complied. They made a blazing heap of all their valuables, 
and when those were consumed, set the castle in flames. 
While the flames roared and crackled around them, and, shoot- 
ing up into the sky, turned it blood-red, Jocen cut the throat of 
his beloved wife and stabbed himself. All the others who had 
wives or children did the like dreadful deed. When the popu- 
lace broke in, they found (except the trembling few, cowering 
in corners, whom they soon killed) only heaps of greasy cin- 
ders, with here and there something like part of the blackened 
trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately been a human 
creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the Creator, as they 
were. 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, ETC 



92 



After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, 
in no very good manner, with the holy crusade. It was under- 
taken jointly by the King of England and his old friend Philip 
of France. They commenced the business by reviewing their 
forces, to the number of a hundred thousand men. Afterwards 
they severally embarked their troops for Messina, in Sicily, 
which was appointed as the next place of meeting. 

King Richard's sister had married the king of this place, 
but he was dead ; and his uncle Tancred had usurped the 
crown, cast the royal widow into prison, and possessed himself 
of her estates. Richard fiercely demanded his sister's release, 
the restoration of her lands, and (according to the royal custom 
of the island) that she should have a golden chair, a golden 
table, four-and-twenty silver cups, and four-and-twenty silver 
dishes. As he was too powerful to be successfully resisted, 
Tancred yielded to his demands ; and then the French king 
grew jealous, and complained that the English king wanted to 
be absolute in the island of Messina and everywhere else. 
Richard, however, cared little or nothing for this complaint; 
and, in consideration of a present of twenty thousand pieces of 
gold, promised his pretty little nephew Arthur, then a child of 
two years old, in marriage to Tancred's daughter. We shall 
hear again of pretty little Arthur by and by. 

. This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains beint, 
knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him) King 
Richard took his sister away, and also a fair lady named Beren- 
garia, with whom he had fallen in love in France, and whom his 
mother. Queen Eleanor (so long in prison, you remember, but 
released by Richard on his coming to the throne), had brought 
out there to be his wife, and sailed with them for Cyprus. 

He soon had the pleasure of fighting the king of the Island 
of Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the Eng- 
lish troops who were shipwrecked on the shore ; and, easily 
conquering this poor monarch,he seized his only daughter to be a 
companion to the Lady Berengaria, and put the king himself 
into silver tetters. He then sailed away again with his mother, 
sister, wife, and the captive princess ; and soon arrived before 
the town of Acre, which the French king with his fleet was be- 
sieging from the sea. But the French king was in no trium- 
phant condition ; for his army had been thinned by the swords 
of the Saracens, and wasted by the plague ; and Saladin, the 
brave sultan of the Turks, at the head of the numerous army, 
was at that time gallantly defending the place from the hills that 
rise above it. 



92 



A CHILE'S mSTORY OP ENGLAND. 



Wherever the united army of the Crusaders went, they 
agreed in few points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrel- 
ling in a most unholy manner ; in debauching the people among 
whom they tarried, whether they were friends or foes ; and in 
carrying disturbances and ruin into quiet places. The French 
king was jealous of the English king, and the English king was 
jealous of the French king, and the disorderly and violent sol- 
diers of the two nations were jealous of one another ; conse- 
quently the two kings could not at first agree, even upon a joint 
assault on Acre ; but when they did make up their quarrel for 
that purpose, the Saracens promised to yield the town, to give 
up to the Christians the wood of the holy cross, to set at liberty 
all their Christian captives, and to pay two hundred thousand 
pieces of gold. All this was to be done within forty days j but 
not being done, King Richard ordered some three thousand 
Saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of his camp, 
and there, in full view of their own countrymen, to be 
butchered. 

The French king had no part in that crime ; for he was by 
that time travelling homeward with the greater part of his men, 
being offended by the overbearing conduct of the English king, 
being anxious to look after his ovv^n dominions, and being ill, 
besides, from the unwholesome air of that hot and sandy 
country. King Richard carried on the war without him, and 
remained in the East, meeting with a variety of adventures, 
nearly a year and a half. Every night when his army was on 
the march and came to a halt, the heralds cried out three times, 
to remind all the soldiers of the cause in which they were en- 
gaged, " Save the holy sepulchre ! " and then all the soldiers 
knelt and said " Amen ! " Marching or encamping, the army 
had continually to strive with the hot air of the glaring desert, 
or with the Saracen soldiers animated and directed by the 
brave Saladin, or with both together. Sickness and death, 
battle and wounds, were always among them; but through 
every difficulty King Richard fought like a giant, and worked 
like a common laborer. Long and long after he was quiet in 
his grave, his terrible battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of 
English steel in its mighty head, was a legend among the Sara- 
cens j and when all the Saracen and Christian hosts had been 
dust for many a year, if a Saracen horse started at any object 
by the wayside, his rider would exclaim, " What dost thou fear, 
fool t Dost thou think King Richard is behind it ? " 

No one admired this king's renown for bravery more than 
Saladin himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. When 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, ETC. 93 

Richard lay ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits from Da- 
mascus, and snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly messages 
and compliments were frequently exchanged between them ; 
and then King Richard would mount his horse, and kill as 
many Saracens as'he could, and Saladin would mount his, and 
kill as many Christians as he could. In this way King Rich- 
ard fought to his heart's content at Arsoof and at Jaffa ; and 
finding himself with nothing exciting to do at Ascalon, except 
to rebuild, for his own defence, some fortifications there which 
the Saracens had destroyed, he kicked his ally, the Duke of 
Austria, for being too proud to work at them. 

The army at last came within sight of the holy city of Jeru- 
salem, but being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling 
and fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the Saracens upon 
a truce for three years, three months, three days, and three 
hours. Then the English Christians, protected by the noble 
Saladin, from Saracen revenge, visited our Saviour's tomb ; and 
then King Richard embarked with a small force at Acre to re- 
turn home. 

But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain 
to pass through Germany under an assumed name. Now, there 
were many people in Germany who had served in the Holy 
Land under that proud Duke of Austria who had been kicked \ 
and some of them, easily recognizing a man so remarkable as 
King Richard, carried their intelligence to the kicked duke, 
who straightway took him prisoner at a little inn near Vienna. 

The duke's master, the Emperor of Germany, and the King 
of France, were equally delighted to have so troublesome a 
monarch in safe keeping. Friendships which are founded on 
a partnership in doing wrong are never true ; and the King of 
France was now quite as heartily King Richard's foe as he had 
ever been his friend in his unnatural conduct to his father. He 
monstrously pretended that King Richard had designed to 
poison him in the East ; he charged him with having murdered 
there a man whom he had in truth befriended ; he bribed the 
Emperor of Germany to keep him close prisoner ; and finally, 
through the plotting of these two princes, Richard was brought 
before the German legislature, charged with the foregoing 
crimes, and many others. But he defended himself so well, 
that many of the assembly were moved to tears by his eloquence 
and earnestness. It was decided that he should be treated, 
during the rest of his captivity, in a manner more becoming his 
dignity than he had been, and that he should be set free on the 
payment of 3- heavy.ransom. Thj? ran§prri the English peopl© 



94 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



willingly raised. When Queen Eleanor took it over to Germany^ 
it was at first evaded and refused. But she appealed to the 
honor of all the princes of the German Empire in behalf of her 
son, and appealed so well that it was accepted, and the king 
released. Thereupon the King of France wrote to Prince Jo?in 
" Take care of thyself ; the Devil is unchained ! " 

Prince John had reason to fear his brother; for he had been 
a traitor to him in his captivity. He had secretly joined the 
French king, had vowed to the English nobles and people that 
his brother was dead, and had vainly tried to seize the crown. 
He was now in France, at a place called Evreux. Being th? 
meanest and basest of men, he contrived a mean and base ex- 
pedient for making himself acceptable to his brother. He in- 
vited the French officers of the garrison in that town to dinner, 
murdered them all, and then took the fortress. With this re- 
commendation to the good-v/ill of a lion-hearted monarch, he 
hastened to King Richard, fell on his knees before him, and 
obtained the intercession of Queen Eleanor. " I forgive him," 
said the king ; " and I hope I may forget the injury he has done 
me, as easily as I know he will forget my pardon." 

While King Richard was in Sicily, there had been trouble 
in his dominions at home ; one of the bishops whom he had left 
in charge thereof arresting the other, and making, in his pride 
and ambition, as great a show as if he were king himself. But 
the king hearing of it at Messina, and appointing a new regen- 
cy, this Longchamp (for that was his name) had fled to France 
in a woman's dress, and had there been encouraged and sup- 
ported by the French king. With all these causes of offence 
against Philip in his mind, King Richard had no sooner been 
welcomed home by his enthusiastic subjects with great display 
and splendor, and had no sooner been crowned afresh at Win- 
chester, than he resolved to show the French king that the 
Devil was unchained indeed, and made war against him with 
great fury. 

There was fresh trouble at home about this time, arising 
out of the discontent of the poor people, who complained that 
they were far more heavily taxed than the rich, and who found 
a spirited champion in William Fitz-Osbert, called Longbeard. 
He became the leader of a secret society, comprising fifty thou- 
sand men ; he was seized by surprise ; he stabbed the citizen 
who first laid hands upon him, and retreated, bravely fighting, 
to a church, which he maintained four days, until he was dis- 
lodged by fire, and run through the body as he came out. He 
was not killed, though ; for h§ was dragged, half d^ad, at ^ 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE FIRST, ETC. 95 

tail of a horse to Smithfield, and there hanged. Death was 
long a favorite remedy for silencing the people's advocates ; 
but, as we go on with this history, I fancy we shall find them 
difficult to make an end of, for all that. 

The French war, delayed occasionally by a truce, was still 
in progress when a certain lord named Vidomar, Viscount of 
Limoges, chanced to find in his ground a treasure of ancient 
coins. As the king's vassal, he sent the king half of it ; but 
the king claimed the whole. The lord refused to yield the 
whole. The king besieged the lord in his castle, swore that he 
would take the castle by storm, and hang every man of its de- 
fenders on the battlements. 

There was a strange old song in that part of the country, 
to the effect, that in Limoges an arrow would be made by which 
King Richard would die. It may be that Bertrand de Gour- 
don, a young man who was one of the defenders of the castle, 
had often sung it, or heard it sung of a winter night, and remem- 
bered it when he saw, from his post upon the ramparts, the 
king, attended only by his chief officer, riding below the walls 
surveying the place. He drew an arrow to the head, took 
steady aim, said between his teeth, " Now, I pray God speed 
thee well, arrow ! " discharged it, and struck the king in the 
left shoulder. 

. Although the wound was not at first considered dangerous, 
it was severe enough to cause the king to retire to his tent, and 
direct the assault to be made without him. The castle was 
taken ; and every man of its defenders was hanged, as the king 
had sworn all should be, except Bertrand de Gourdon, who was 
reserved until the royal pleasure respecting him should be 
known. 

By that time unskilful treatment had made the wound mor- 
tal, and the king knew that he was dying. He directed Ber- 
trand to be brought into his tent. The young man was brought 
there heavily chained. King Richard looked at him steadily. 
He looked as steadily at the king. 

" Knave ! " said King Richard, *' what have I done to thee, 
that thou shouldst take my life ? " 

" What hast thou done to me ? '* replied the young man, 
" With thine own hands thou hast killed my father and my two 
brothers. Myself thou wouldst have hanged. Let me die, now, 
by any torture that thou wilt. My comfort is, that no torture 
can save thee. Thou, too, must die; and through me the 
world is quit of thee." 

Again the king looked at the young man steadily. Again 



^6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the young man looked steadily at him. Perhaps some remem^ 
brance of his generous enemy Saladin, who was not a Chris- 
tian, came into the mind of the dying king. 

" Youth," he said, " I forgive thee. Go unhurt ! " 

Then, turning to the chief officer who had been riding in his 
company when he received the wound. King Richard said, — 

" Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let 
him depart." 

He sunk down on his couch, and a dark mist seemed in his 
weakened eyes to fill the tent wherein he had so often rested, and 
he died. His age was forty-two : he had reigned ten years. 
His last command was not obeyed ; for the chief officer flayed 
Bertrand de Gourdon alive, and hanged him. 

There is an old tune yet known, — a sorrowful air will some- 
times outlive many generations of strong men, and even last 
longer than battle-axes with twenty pounds of steel in the head, 
— by which this king is said to have been discovered in his cap- 
tivity. Blondel, a favorite minstrel of King Richard, as the 
story relates, faithfully seeking his royal master, went singing 
it outside the gloomy walls of many foreign fortresses and 
prisons, until, at last, he heard it echoed from within a dungeon, 
and knew the voice, and cried out in ecstasy, " O Richard ! O 
my king ! " You may believe it, if you like ; it would be easy 
to believe worse things. Richard was himself a minstrel and 
poet. If he had not been a prince too, he might have been a 
better man perhaps, and might have gone out of the world with 
less bloodshed and waste of life to answer for. 



CHAPTER XIV, 

ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN, CALLED LACKLAND. 

At two-and-thirty years of age, John became King of Eng- 
land. His pretty little nephew, Arthur, had the best claim to 
the throne ; but John seized the treasure, and made fine 
promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned at Westmin- 
ster within a few weeks after his brother Richard's death. I 
doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon the 
head of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if 
England had been searched from end to end to find him out 



ENGLAND UNDER KING JOttN. 9^ 

The French king, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right 
of John to his new dignity, and declared in favor of Arthur. 
You must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for 
the fatherless boy ; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to 
oppose the King of England. So John and the French king 
went to war about Arthur. 

He was a handsome boy, at that time on^y twelve years old. 
He was not born when his father, Geoifrey, had his brains 
trampled out at the tournament ; and, besides the misfortune 
of never having known a father's guidance and protection, he 
had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother (Con- 
stance by name), lately married to her third husband. She 
took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the French king, who 
pretended to be very much his friend, and who made him a 
knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage ; but who 
cared so little about him in reality, that, finding it his interest 
to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without the 
least consideration for the poor little prince, and heartlessly 
sacrificed all his interests. 

Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly ; and 
in the course of that time his mother died. But the French 
king then finding it his interest to quarrel with King John 
again, again made Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan 
boy to court. " You know your rights, Prince," said the French 
king, "and you would like to be a king. Is it not so?" 
" Truly," said Prince Arthur, " I should greatly like to be a 
king ! " " Then," said Philip, " you shall have two hundred 
gentlemen who are knights of mine, and with them you shall 
go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which youi 
uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken possession. I 
myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy.' 
Poor Arthur was so flattered, and so grateful, that he signed a 
treaty with the crafty French king, agreeing to consider him his 
superior lord, and that the French king should keep for himself 
whatever he could take from King John. 

Now King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip 
was so perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well 
have been a lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so 
young, he was ardent and flushed with hope ; and when the 
people of Brittany (which was his inheritance) sent him five 
hundred more knights and five thousand foot-soldiers, he be- 
lieved his fortune was made. The people of Brittany had been 
fond of him from his birth, and had requested that he might be 
called Arthur, in remembrance of that dimly famous English 



98 A CHILD'S HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

Arthur of whom I told you early in this book, whom they b^ 
lieved to have been the brave friend and companion of an old 
king of their own. They had tales among them about a prophet 
called Merlin (of the same old time), who had foretold that 
their own king should be restored to them after hundreds of 
years : and they believed that the prophecy would be fulfilled 
in Arthur ; that the time would come when he would rule them 
with a crown of Brittany upon his head, and when neither King 
of France nor King of England would have any power over 
them. When Arthur found himself riding in a glittering suit ol 
armor, on a richly caparisoned horse, at the head of his train of 
knights and soldiers, he began to believe this too. and to con- 
sider old Merlin a very superior prophet. 

He did not know — how could he, being so innocent and in- 
experienced ? — that his little army was a mere nothing against 
the power, of the King of England. The French king knew it \ 
but the poor boy's fate was little to him, so that the King of 
England was worried and distressed. Therefore, King Philip 
went his way into Normandy ; and Prince Arthur went his way 
towards Mirebeau, a French town near Poictiers, both very well 
pleased. 

Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because 
his grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appear- 
ance in this history (and who had always been his mother's 
enemy), was living there, and because his knights said, " Prince, 
if you can take her prisoner, you will be able to bring the king, 
your uncle, to terms ! " But she was not to be easily taken. 
She was old enough by this time, — eighty ; but she was as full 
of stratagem as she was full of years and wickedness. Receiv- 
ing intelligence of young Arthur's approach, she shut herself up 
in a high tower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like 
men. Prince Arthur with his little army besieged the high tower. 
King John, hearing how matters stood, came up to the rescue 
with his army. So here was a strange family party : the boy- 
prince besieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging 
him ! 

This position of affairs did not last long. One summer 
night King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, sur- 
prised Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, 
and seized the prince himself in his bed. The knights were 
put in heavy irons, and driven away in open carts drawn by 
bullocks, to various dungeons, where they were most inhumanly 
treated, and where some of them were starved to death. Prince 
Arthur was sent to the Castle of Falaise. 



ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN g^ 

One day while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully 
thinking it strange that one so young should be in so much 
trouble, and looking out of the small window in the deep dark 
wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, 
and he saw his uncle, the king, standing in the shadow of the 
archway, looking very grim.. 

" Arthur," said the king, with his wicked eyes more on the 
stone floor than on his nephew, " will you not trust to the gen- 
tleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving 
uncle ? " 

" I will tell my loving uncle that," replied the boy, " when 
he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of Eng- 
land, and then come to me and ask the question." 

The king looked at him and went out. " Keep that boy 
close prisoner," said he to the warden of the castle. 

Then the king took secret counsel with the worst of his 
nobles how the prince was to be got rid of. Some said, " Put 
out his eyes and keep him in prison, as Robert of Normandy 
was kept." Others said, " Have him stabbed." Others, " Have 
him hanged." Others, " Have him poisoned." 

King John feeling that in any case, whatever was done 
afterwards, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those 
handsome eyes burnt out, that had looked at him so proudly 
while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent 
certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. 
But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shed such pite- 
ous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de Bourg (or Burgh), 
the warden of the castle, who had a love for him, and was an 
honorable, tender man, that Hubert could not bear it. To his 
eternal honor, he prevented the torture from being performed, 
and, at his own risk, sent the savages away. 

The chafed and disappointed king bethought himself of the 
stabbing suggestion next, and, with his shuffling manner and 
his cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. "I am a 
gentleman, and not an executioner," said William de Bray, and 
left the presence with disdain. 

But it was not difficult for a king to hire a murderer in those 
days. King John found one for his money, and sent him down 
to the Castle of Falaise. " On what errand dost thou come ? " 
said Hubert to this fellow. ".To despatch young Arthur," he 
returned. " Go back to him who sent thee," answered Hubert, 
" and say that I will do it." 

King John, very well knowing that Hubert would never Cb^ 
it. but that he courageously sent this reply to save the prinip»^ 



too A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

or gain time, despatched messengers to convey the young ^ti^ 
oner to the Castle of Rouen. 

Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert, or whom he 
had never stood in greater need than then, carried away by 
night, and lodged in his new prison ; where, through his grated 
window, he could hear the deep waters of the River Seine rip' 
pling against the stone wall below. 

One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of 
rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suf- 
fering and dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by 
his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the tower. 
He hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed. When they came 
to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night air from the 
river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch, and 
put it out. Then Arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly drawn 
into a solitary boat. And in that boat he found his uncle and 
one other man. 

He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. 
Deaf to his entreaties, they stabbed him, and sunk his body in 
the river with heavy stones. When the spring morning broke, 
the tower-door was closed, the boat was gone, the river sparkled 
on its way, and never more was any trace of the poor boy beheld 
by mortal eyes. 

The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England, 
awakened a hatred of the king (aheady odious for his many 
vices, and for his having stolen away and married a noble lady 
while his own wife was living) that never slept again through 
his whole reign. In Brittany the indignation was intense. 
Arthur's own sister Eleanor was in the power of John, and shut 
up in a convent at Bristol ; but his half-sister Alice was in Brit- 
tany. The people chose her, and the murdered prince's father- 
in-law, the last husband of Constance, to represent them, and 
carried their fiery complaints to King Philip. King Philip 
summoned King John (as the holder of territority in France) 
to come before him and defend himself. King John refusing 
to appear. King Philip declared him false, perjured, and guilty, 
and again made war. In a little time, by conquering the 
greater part of his French territory. King Philip deprived him 
of one third of his dominions. And through all the fighting 
that took place, King John was always found either to be eat- 
ing and drinking like a gluttonous fool when the danger was at 
a distance, or to be running away like a beaten cur when it was 
near. 

You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions 



ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN. lOl 

at this rate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him oi 
his cause that they plainly refused to follow his banner out of 
England, he had enemies enough. But he made another enemy 
of the pope, which he did in this way. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury dying, the junior monks of 
that place, wishing to get the start of the senior monks in the 
appointment of his successor, met together at midnight, secretly 
elected a certain Reginald, and sent him off to Rome to get 
the pope's approval. The senior monks and the king soon 
■^finding this out, and being very angry about it, the junior monks 
gave way ; and all the monks together elected the Bishop of 
Norwich, who was the king's favorite. The pope, hearing the 
whole story, declared that neither election would do for him, 
and that he elected Stephen Langton. The monks submitting 
to the pope, the king turned them all out bodily, and banished 
them as traitors. The pope sent three bishops to the king to 
threaten him with an interdict. The king told the bishops, 
that if any interdict were laid upon his kingdom, he would tear 
out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the monks he could lay 
hold of, and send them over to Rome in that undecorated state 
as a present for their master. The bishops, nevertheless, soon 
published the interdict and fled. 

After it had lasted a year, the pope proceeded to his next 
step, which was excommunication. King John was declared 
excommunicated, with all the usual ceremonies. The king was 
so incensed at this, and was made so desperate by the disaffec- 
tion of his barons and the hatred of his people, that it is said 
he even privately sent ambassadors to the Turks in Spain, 
offering to renounce his religion, and hold his kingdom of them, 
if they would help him. It is related that the ambassadors 
were admitted to the presence of the Turkish emir through long 
lines of Moorish guards, and that they found the emir with his 
eyes seriously fixed on the pages of a large book, from which 
he never once looked up j that they gave him a letter from the 
king, containing his proposals, and -were gravely dismissed j 
that presently the emir sent for one of them, and conjured him, 
by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of man the King 
of England truly was ; that the ambassador, thus pressed, 
replied, that the King of England was a false tyrant, against 
whom his own subjects would soon rise ; and that this was (^uite 
enough for the emir. 

Money being, in his position, the next best thing to i>^^n, 
King John spared no means of getting it. He set on J-'-^t 
another oppressing and torturing of the unhappy Jews (wrv>^ 



I03 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was quite in his way), and invented a new punishment for one 
wealthy Jew of Bristol. Until such time as that Jew should 
produce a certain large sum of money, the king sentenced him 
to be imprisoned, and every day to have one tooth violently 
wrenched out of his head ; beginning with the double teeth. 
For seven days, the oppressed man bore the daily pain and 
lost the daily tooth ; but on the eighth he paid the money. 
With the treasure raised in such ways, the king made an expe- 
dition into Ireland, where some English nobles had revolted.^ 
It was one of the very few places from which he did not run 
away ; because no resistance was shown. He made another 
expedition into Wales, whence he did run away in the end, but 
not before he had got from the Welsh people, as hostages, 
twenty-seven young men of the best families ; every one of 
whom he caused to be slain in the following year. 

To interdict and excommunication, the pope now added his 
last sentence, deposition. He proclaimed John no longer king, 
absolved all his subjects from their allegiance, and sent Stephen 
Langton and others to the King of France to tell him, that, if 
he would invade England, he should be forgiven all his sins ; 
at least, should be forgiven them by the pope, if that would do. 

As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than 
to invade England, he collected a great army at Rouen, and a 
fleet of seventeen hundred ships to bring them over. But the 
English people, however bitterly they hated the King, were not 
a people to suffer invasion quietly. They flocked to Dover, 
where the English standard was, in such great numbers, to en- 
roll themselves as defenders of their native land, that there were 
no provisions for them ; and the king could only select and 
retain sixty thousand. But at this crisis the pope, who had 
his own reasons for objecting to either King John or King 
Philip being too powerful, interfered. He intrusted a legate, 
whose name was Pandolf, with the easy task of frightening King 
John. He sent him to the English camp, from France, to ter- 
rify him with exaggerations of King Philip's power, and his 
own weakness in the discontent of the English barons and peo- 
ple. Pandolf discharged his commission so well, that King 
John, in a wretched panic, consented to acknowledge Stephen 
Langton ; to resign his kingdom " to God, St. Peter, and St. 
Paul," which meant the pope ; and to hold it ever afterwards by 
the pope's leave, on payment of an annual sum of money. To 
this shameful contract he publicly bound himself in the church 
of the Knights Templars at Dover ; where he laid at the legate's 
feet a part of the tribute, which the legate haughtily trampled 



ENGLANJb UNDER KING JOHN. 103 

upon. But they do say that this was merely a genteel flourish, 
and that he was afterwards seen to pick it up and pocket it. 

There was an unfortunate prophet, of the name of Peter, 
who had greatly increased King John's terrors by predicting 
that he would be unknighted (which the king supposed to sig- 
nify that he would die) before the Feast of the Ascension should 
be past. That was the day after this humiliation. When the 
next morning came, and the king, who had been trembling all 
night, found himself alive and safe, he ordered the prophet, and 
his son too, to be dragged through the streets at the tails of 
horses, and then hanged, for having frightened him. 

As King John had now submitted, the pope, to King Philip's 
great astonishment, took him under his protection, and informed 
King Philip that he found he could not give him leave to in- 
vade England. The angry Philip resolved to do it without his 
leave : but he gained nothing, and lost much ; for the English, 
commanded by the Earl of Salisbury, went over in five hundred 
ships, to the French coast, before the French fleet had sailed 
away from it, and utterly defeated the whole. 

The pope then took off his three sentences, one after an- 
other, and empowered Stephen Langton publicly to receive 
King John into the favor of the Church again, and to ask him 
to dinner. The king, who hated Langton with all his might 
and main, — and with reason too, for he was a great and good 
man, with whom such a king could have no sympathy, — pre- 
tended to cry and be very grateful. There was a little difficulty 
about settling how much the king should pay as a recompense 
to the clergy for the losses he had caused them : but the end 
of it was, that the superior clergy got a good deal, and the in- 
ferior clergy got little or nothing j which has also happened 
since King John's time, I believe. 

When all these matters were arranged, the king in his tri- 
umph became more fierce and false and insolent to all around 
him than he had ever been. An alliance of sovereigns against 
King Philip gave him an opportunity of landing an army in 
France, with which he even took a town ! but on the French 
king's gaining a great victory, he ran away, of course, and made 
a truce for five years. 

And now the time approached when he was to be still fur- 
ther humbled, and made to feel, if he could feel anything, what 
a wretched creature he was. Of all men in the world, Stephen 
Langton seemed raised up by Heaven to oppose and subdue 
him. When he ruthlessly burnt and destroyed the property of 
bis own subjects, because their lords, the barons, would not 



I04 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

serve him abroad, Stephen Langton fearlessly reproved and 
threatened him. When he swore to restore the laws of King 
Edward, or the laws of King Henry the First, Stephen Langton 
knew his falsehood, and pursued him through all his evasions. 
When the barons met at the abbey of St. Edmund's Bury, to 
consider their wrongs and the king's oppressions, Stephen Lang- 
ton roused them by his fervid words to demand a solemn char- 
ter of rights and liberties from their perjured master, and to 
swear, one by one, on the high altar, that they would have it, 
or would wage war against him to the death. When the king 
hid himself in London from the barons, and was at last obliged 
to receive them, they told him roundly they would not believe 
liim unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would 
keep his word. When he took the cross to invest himself with 
some interest, and belong to somethmg that was received with 
favor, Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he ap- 
pealed to the pope, and the pope wrote to Stephen Langton in 
behalf of his new favorite, Stephen Langton was deaf even to 
the pope himself, and saw before him nothing but the welfare 
of England and the crimes of the English king. 

At Easter-time, the barons assembled at Stamford, in Lin- 
colnshire, in proud array, and marching near to Oxford, where 
the king was, delivered into ,the hands of Stephen Langton and. 
two others a list of grievances. " And these," they said, " he 
must redress, or we will do it for ourselves ! " When Stephen 
Langton told the king as much, and read the list to him, he 
went half mad with rage. But that did him no more good than 
his afterwards trying to pacify the barons with lies. They 
called themselves and their followers, " The army of God and 
the holy Church." Marching through the country, with the 
people thronging to them everywhere (except at Northampton, 
where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they at last 
triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither the 
whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them. 
Seven knights alone of all the knights in England, remained 
with the king ; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl 
of Pembroke to the barons to say that he approved of every- 
thing, and would meet them to sign their charter when they 
would. " Then," said the barons, "let the day be the 15th of 
June, and the place Runny-Mead." 

On Monday the 15th of June, 12 14, the king came from 
Windsor Castle, and the barons came from the town of Staines, 
and they met on Runny-Mead, which is still a pleasant meadow 
V)y tlie Thames, where rushes grow in the clear water of thtJ 



ENGLAND UNDER KING JOHN. 1 05 

winding river, and its banks are green with grass and trees. 
On the side of the barons, came the general of their army, 
Robert Fitz-Walter, and a great concourse of the nobility of 
England. With the king came, in all, some four-and-twenty 
persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were 
merely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that 
great company, the king signed Magna Charta, — the great char- 
ter of England, — by which he pledged himself to maintain the 
Church in its rights ; to relieve the barons of oppressive obli- 
gations as vassals of the crown (of which the barons, in their 
turn, pledged themselves to relieve their vassals, the people); 
to respect the liberties of London and all other cities and bor- 
oughs ; to protect foreign merchants who came to England ; to 
imprison no man without a fair trial ; and to sell, delay, or deny 
justice to none. As the barons knew his falsehood well, they 
further required, as their securities, that he should send out of 
his kingdom all his foreign troops ; that for two months they 
should hold possession of the city of London, and Stephen 
Langton of the tower ; and that five-and-twenty of their body, 
chosen by themselves, should be a lawful committee to watch 
the keeping of the charter, and to make war upon him if he 
broke it. 

All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter 
with a smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would 
have done so, as he departed from the splendid assembly. 
When he got home to Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman 
in his helpless fury. And he broke the charter immediately 
afterwards. 

He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the pope for 
help, and plotted to take London by surprise, while the barons 
should be holding a great tournament at Stanford, which they 
had agreed to hold there as a celebration of the charter. The 
barons, however, found him out, and put it off. Then, when 
the barons desired to see him, and. tax him with his treachery, 
he made numbers of appointments with them, and kept none, 
and shifted from place to place, and was constantly sneaking 
and skulking about. At last he appeared at Dover, to join his 
foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into his pay ; and with 
them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which was oc- 
cupied by knights and soldiers of the barons. He would have 
hanged them, every one ; but the leader of the foreign soldiers, 
fearful of what the English people might afterwards do to him, 
interfered to save the knights : therefore the king was fain to 
satisfy his vengeance with the death ©f all the common men* 



•lo6 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Then he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his 
army, to ravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he 
carried fire and slaughter into the northern part ; torturing, 
plundering, killing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon 
the people ; and every morning setting a worthy example to his 
men by setting fire, with his own monster-hands, to the house 
where he had slept last night. Nor was this all ; for the pope, 
coming to the aid of his precious friend, laid the kingdom un- 
dqr an interdict again, because the people took part with the 
barons. It did not much matter j for the people had grown so 
used to it now that they had begun to think nothing about it. 
It occurred to them, — perhaps to Stephen Langton too, — that 
they could keep their churches open, and ring their bells, with- 
out the pope's permission as well as with it. So they tried tha 
experiment, and found it succeeded perfectly. 

It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness 
of cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a forsworn 
outlaw of a king, the barons sent to Louis, son of the French 
monarch, to offer him the English crown. Caring as little for 
the pope's excommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as 
it is possible his father may have cared for the pope's forgive- 
ness of his sins, he landed at Sandwich (King John immediately 
running away from Dover, where he happened to be), and went 
on to London. The Scottish king, with whom many of the 
Northern English lords .had taken refuge, numbers of the foreign 
soldiers, numbers of the barons, and numbers of the people 
went over to him every day ; King John the while continually 
running away in all directions. The career of Louis was 
checked, however, by the suspicions of the barons, founded on 
the dying declaration of a French lord, that when the kingdom 
was conquered he was sworn to banish them as traitors, and to 
give their estates to some of his own nobles. Rather than 
suffer this, some of the barons hesitated ; others even went 
over to King John. 

It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes ; 
for in his savage and murderous course he had now taken some 
towns and met with some successes. But happily for England 
and humanity, his death was near. Crossing a dangerous 
quicksand, called the wash, not very far from Wisbeach, the 
tide came up, and nearly drowned his army. He and his 
soldiers escaped ; but looking back from the shore when he 
was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep down in torrents, 
overturn the wagons, horses, and men that carried his treasure, 
and ingulf them in a raging whirlpool from which nothing could 
be delivered. 



ENGLAI^D UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, 107 

Cursing and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on 
to Swinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quanti- 
ties of pears and peaches and new cider, — some say poison too, 
but there is very little reason to suppose so, — of which he ate 
and drank in an immoderate and beastly way. All night he lay 
ill of a burning fever, and haunted with horrible fears. Next 
day they put him in a horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford 
Castle, where he passed another night of pain and horror. 
Next day they carried him, with greater difficulty than on the 
day before, to the Castle of Newark upon Trent ; and there, 
on the 1 8th of October, in the forty-ninth year of his ^ge, and 
the seventeenth of his vile reign, was an end of this miserable 
brute. 



CHAPTER XV. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED HENRY THE 
THIRD OF WINCHESTER. 

If any of the English barons remembered the murdered 
Arthur's sister, Eleanor, the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in 
her convent at Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, or 
maintained her right to the crown. The dead usurper's eldest 
boy, Henry by name, was taken by the Earl of Pembroke, the 
marshal of England, to the city of Gloucester, and there 
crowned in great haste when he was only ten years old. As 
the crown itself had been lost with the king's treasure, in the 
raging water, and, as there was no time to make another, they 
put a circle of plain gold upon his head instead. " We have 
been the enemies of this child's father," said Lord Pembroke, 
a good and true gentleman, to the few lords who were present, 
*' and he merited our ill-will ; but the child himself is innocent, 
and his youth demands our friendship and protection." Those 
lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their 
own young children ; and they bowed their heads, and said, 
" Long live King Henry the Third ! " 

Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, 
and made Lord Pembroke Recent or Protector of England, as 
the king was too young to reign alone. The next thing to be 
done was to get rid of Prince Louis of France, and to win over 
those English barons who were still ranged u^ider his banner 



loS A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

He was strong in many parts of England, and in London itself*, 
and he held, among other places, a certain castle called the 
Castle of Mount Sorel, in Leicestershire. To this fortress, 
after some skirmishing and truce-making. Lord Pembroke laid 
siege. Louis despatched an army of six hundred knights and 
twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it. Lord Pembroke, who 
was not strong enough for such a force, retired with all his 
men. The army of the French prince, which had marched 
there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plun- 
der, and came, in a boastful, swaggering manner, to Lincoln. 
The town submitted ; but the castle in the town, held by 
a brave widow lady, named Nichola de Camville (whose prop- 
erty it was), made such a sturdy resistance, that the French 
count in command of the army of the French prince found it 
necessary to besiege this castle. While he was thus engaged, 
word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke, with four hun- 
dred knights, two hundred and fifty men with cross-bows, and a 
stout force both of horse and foot, was marching towards him. 
"What care I .? " said the French count "The Englishman is 
not so mad as to attack me and my great army in a walled 
town ! " But the Englishman did it for all that, and did it, not 
so madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into the 
narrow, ill-paved lanes and by-ways of Lincoln, where its horse- 
soldiers could not ride in any strong body ; and there he made 
such havoc with them, that the whole force surrendered them- 
selves prisoners, except the count, who said that he would never 
yield to an English traitor alive, and accordingly got killed. 
The end of this victory, which the English called, for a joke, 
the Fair of Lincoln, was the usual one in those times, — the 
common men were slain without any mercy, and the knights 
and gentlemen paid ransom and went home. 

The wife of Louis, the fair Blanche of Castile, dutifully 
equipped a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from 
France to her husband's aid. An English fleet of forty ships, 
some good and some bad, gallantly met them near the mouth 
of the Thames, and took or sunk sixty-five in one fight. This 
great loss put an end to the French prince's hopes. A treaty 
was made at Lambeth, in virtue of which the English barons 
who had remained attached to his cause returned to their allegi- 
ance ; and it was engaged on both sides that the prince and 
all his troops should retire peace^fully to France. It was time 
to go ; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged to 
borrow money from the citizens of London to pay his expenses 
home. 



EMGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD. 



109 



Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing 
the country justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturb- 
ances that had risen among men in the days of the bad King 
John. He caused Magna Charta to be still more improved, 
and so amended the Forest Laws that a peasant was no longer 
put to death for killing a stag in a royal forest, but was only 
imprisoned. It Vv-ould have been well for England if it could 
have had so good a protector many years longer ; but that was 
not to be. Within three years after the young king's corona- 
tion, Lord Pembroke died ; and you may see his tomb at this 
day, in the old Temple Church in London. 

The protectorship was now divided. Peter de Roches, 
whom King John had made Bishop of Winchester, was in- 
trusted with the care of the person of the young sovereign ; and 
the exercise of the royal authority was confided to Earl Hu- 
bert de Burgh. These two personages had from the first no 
liking for each other, and soon became enemies. When 
the young king was declared of age, Peter de Roches, 
finding that Hubert increased in power and favor, retired dis- 
contentedly, and went abroad. For nearly ten years after- 
wards Hubert had full sway alone. 

But ten years is a long time to hold the favor of a king. 
This king, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to 
his father, in feebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution The 
best that can be said of him is that he was not cruel De 
Roches coming home again after ten years, and being a nov- 
elty, the king began to favor him and to look coldly on Hu- 
bert. Wanting money besides, and havmg made Hubert rich, 
he began to dislike Hubert. At last he was made to believe, 
or pretend to believe, that Hubert had misappropriated some 
of the royal treasure ; and ordered him to furnish an account 
of all he had done in his administration. Besides which, the 
foolish charge was brought against Hubert that he had made 
himself the king's favorite by magic. Hubert very well knowing, 
that he could never defend himself against such nonsense, and 
that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin, instead of 
answering the charges, fled to Merton Abbey. Then the king, 
in a violent passion, sent for the Mayor of London, and said 
to the Mayor, " Take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me 
Hubert de Burgh out of that abbey, and bring him here." 
The Mayor posted off to do it ; but the Archbishop of Dublin 
(who was a friend of Hubert's) warning the king that an abbey 
was a sacred place, and that f he committed any violence 
there he must answer for i^ to the Church, the king changed 



no A CHILD'S HISTORY OF EJVULaND. 

his mind, and called the Mayor back, and declared that Hu« 
bert should have four months feo prepare his defence, and 
should be safe and free during that time. 

Hubert, who relied upon the king's word, though I think 
he was old enough to have known better, came out of Merton 
Abbey upon these conditions, and journeyed away to see his 
wife, a Scottish princess, who was then at St. Edmund's-Bury. 

Almost as soon as he had departed from the sanctuary, his 
enemies persuaded the weak king to send out one Sir Godfrey 
de Crancumb, who commanded three hundred vagabonds called 
the Black Band, with orders to seize him. They came up with 
him at a little town in Essex called Brentwood, when he was 
in bed. He leaped out of bed, got out of the house, fled to 
the church, ran up to the altar, and laid his hand upon the 
cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band caring neither for 
church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to the church door, 
with their drawn swords flashing round his head, and sent for 
a smith to rivet a set of chains upon him. When the smith (I 
wish I knew his name) was brought, all dark and swarthy with 
the smoke of his forge, and panting with the speed he had 
made, and the Black Band falling aside to show him the pris- 
oner, cried with a loud uproar, " Make the fetters heavy, make 
them strong ! " the smith dropped upon his knee, — but not to 
the Black Band, — and said, "This is the brave Earl Hubert 
de Burgh, who fought at Dover Castle, and destroyed the 
French fleet, and has done his country much good service. 
You may kill me if you like, but I will never make a chain for 
Earl Hubert de Burgh ! " 

The Black Band never blushed, or they might have blushed 
at this. They knocked the smith about from one to another, 
and swore at him, and tied the earl on horseback, undressed 
as he was, and carried him off to the Tower of London. The 
bishops, however, were so indignant at the violation of the 
sanctuary of the Church, that the frightened king soon ordered 
the Black Band to take him back again ; at the same time 
commanding the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his escaping out 
of Brentwood Church. Well, the sheriff dug a deep trench all 
round the church and erected a high fence, and watched the 
church night and day ; the Black Band and their captair^ 
watched it too, like three hundred and one black wolves. 
For thirty-nine days, Hubert de Burgh remained within. At 
length, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much 
for him ; and he gave himself up to the Black Band, who car- 
ried him off, for the second time, to the Tower. When his 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, m 

Mai came on he refused to plead ; but at last it was arranged 
that he should give up all the royal lands which had been be- 
stowed upon him, and should be kept at the Castle of Devizes, 
in what was called " free prison," in charge of four knights 
appointed by four lords. There he remained almost a year, 
until, learning that a follower of his old enemy, the bishop, was 
made keeper of the castle, and fearing that he might be killed 
by treachery, he climbed the ramparts one dark night, dropped 
from the top of the high-castle wall into the moat, and coming 
safely to the ground, took refuge in another Chuich. From 
this place he was delivered by a papty of horse despatched to 
his help by some nobles, who were by ihis time in revolt 
against the king, and assembled in Wales He was finally 
pardoned, and restored to his estates \ but he lived privately, 
and never more aspired to a high post in the realm, or to a high 
place in the king's favor. And thus ends — more happily than 
the stories of many favorites of kings — the adventures of Earl 
Hubert de Burgh. 

The nobles who had risen in revolt were stirred up to rebel- 
lion by the overbearing conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, 
who, finding that the king secretly hated the Great Charter 
which had been forced from his father, did his utmost to con- 
firm him in that dislike, and in the preference he showed to 
foreigners over the English. Of this, and of his even publicly 
declaring that the barons of England were inferior to those of 
France, the English lords complained with such bitterness, that 
the king, finding them well supported by the clergy, became 
frightened for his throne, and sent away the bishop and all his 
foreign associates. On his marriage, however, with Eleanor, a 
French lady, the daughter of the Count of Provence, he openly 
favored the foreigners again ; and so many of his wife's rela- 
tions came over, and made such an immense family-party at 
court, and got so many good things, and pocketed so much 
money, and were so high with the English whose money they 
pocketed, that the bolder English barons murmured openly 
about a clause there was in the Great Charter which provided 
for the banishment of unreasonable favorites. But the foreign- 
ers only laughed disdainfully, and said, " What are your Eng- 
lish laws to us .? " 

King Philip of France had died, and had been succeeded by 
Prince Louis, who had also died after a short reign of three 
years, and had been succeeded by his son of the same name, — 
so moderate and just a man that he was not the least in the 
vorld like a king, as kings went. Isabella, King Henry's 



I T 2 A CHILD'S mSTOR Y OF ENGLAND. 

mother, wished very much (for a certain spite she had) that 
England should make war against this king ; and, as King 
Henry was a mere puppet in anybody's hands who knew how 
to manage his feebleness, she easily carried her point with him. 
But the Parliament were determined to give him no money for 
such a war. So to defy the Parliament, he packed up thirty 
large casks of silver, — 1 don't know how he got so much; I 
daresay he screwed it out of the miserable Jews, — and put them 
aboard ship, and went away himself to carry war into France, 
accompanied by his mother and his brother Richard, Earl of 
Cornwall, who was rich and clever. But he only got well 
beaten, and came home. 

The good humor of the Parliament was not restored by this. 
They reproached the king with wasting the public money to 
make greedy foreigners rich, and were so stern with him, and 
so determined not to let him have more of it to waste if they 
could help it, that he was at his wit's end for some, and tried 
so shamelessly to get all he could from his subjects, by ex- 
cuses or by force, that the people used to say the king was the 
sturdiest beggar in England- He took the cross^ thinking to 
get some money by that means 3 but, as it vvas very well known 
that he never meant to go on a crusade, he got none. In all 
this contention, the Londoners were particularly keen against 
the king, and the king hated them warmly in return, Hating 
or loving, however, made no difference; he continued in the 
same condition for nine or ten years, when, at last, the barons 
said, that, if he would solemnly confirm their liberties afresh, 
the Parliament would vote him a large sum 

As he readily consented, there was a great meeting held in 
Westminster Hall, one pleasant day in May, when all the 
clergy, dressed in their robes, and holding every one of them a 
burning candle in his hand, stood up (the barons being also 
there) while the Archbishop 6f Canterbury read the sentence of 
excommunication against any man, and all men, who should 
henceforth, in any way, infringe the Great Charter of the king- 
dom. When he had done, they all put out their burning can- 
dles with a curse upon the soul of any one, and every one, who 
should merit that sentence. The king concluded with an oath 
to keep the charter, " As I am a man, as I am a Christian, as 
I am a knight, as I am a king ! " 

It was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them ; and the 
king did both, as his father had done before him. He took to 
his old courses again when he was supplied with money, and 
soon cured of their weakness the few who had ever really 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD. 113 

trusted him. When his money was gone, and he was once 
more borrowing and begging everywhere with a meanness wor- 
thy of his nature, he got into a difficulty with the pope re- 
specting the crown of Sicily, which the pope said he had a right 
to give away, and which he offered to King Henry for his sec- 
ond son, Prince Edmund. But if you or I give away what we 
have not got, and what belongs to somebody else, it is likely 
that the person to whom we give it will have some trouble in 
taking it. It was exactly so in this case. It was necessary to 
conquer the Sicilian crown before it could be put upon young 
Edmund's head. It could not be conquered without money. 
The pope ordered the clergy to raise money. The clergy, 
however, were not so obedient to him as usual ; they had been 
disputing with him for some time about his unjust preference 
of Italian priests in England^ and they had begun to doubt 
whether the king's chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid for 
preaching in seven hundred churches, could possibly be, even 
by the pope's favor, in seven hundred places at once. " The 
pope and the king together," said the Bishop of London, " may 
take the mitre off my head ; but if they do, they will find that 
I shall put on a soldier's helmet. I pay nothing." The Bishop 
of Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of London, and would 
pay nothing either. Such sums as the more timid or more 
helpless of the clergy did raise were squandered away, without 
doing any good to the king, or bringing the Sicilian crown an 
inch nearer to Prince Edmund's head. The end of the busi- 
ness was, that the pope gave the crown to the brother of the 
King of France (who conquered it for himself), and sent the 
King of England in a bill of one hundred thousand pounds for 
the expenses of not having won it. 

The king was now so much distressed that we might almost 
pity him, if it were possible to pity a king so shabby and ridic- 
ulous. His clever brother Richard had bought the title of the 
King of the Romans from the German people, and was no 
longer near him to help him with advice. The clergy, resisting 
the very pope, were in alliance with the barons. The barons 
were headed by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, married 
to King Henry's sister, and, though a foreigner himself, the 
most popular man in England against the foreign favorites. 
When the king next met his Parliament, the barons, led by this 
earl, came before him, armed from head to foot, and cased in 
armor. When the Parliament again assembled, in a month's 
time, at Oxford, this earl was at their head ; and the king was 
obliged to consent, on oath, to what was called a Committee of 



114 A CHILD'S If IS TOR V OF ENGLAND. 

Government, consisting of twenty-four members, twelve chosei 
by the barons, and twelve chosen by himself. 

But at a good time for him, his brother Richard came back. 
Richard's first act (the barons would not admit him into Eng- 
land on other terms) was to swear to be faithful to the Commit- 
tee of Government, which he immediately began to oppose with 
all his might. Then the barons began to quarrel among them- 
selves, especially the proud Earl of Gloucester with the Earl of 
Leicester, who went abroad in disgust. Then the people began 
to be dissatisfied with the barons, because they did not do 
enough for them. The king's chances seemed so good again, 
at length, that he took heart enough, or caught it from his 
brother, to tell the Committee of Government that he abolished 
them ; as to his oath, never mind that, the Pope said ! — and to 
seize all the money in the mint and to shut himself up in the 
Tower of London. Here he was joined by his eldest son, 
Prince Edward ; and from the Tower he made public a letter 
of the pope's to the world in general, informing all men that he 
had been an excellent and just king for five and forty years. 

As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, nobody 
cared much for this document. It so chanced that the proud 
Earl of Gloucester dying, was succeeded by his son ; and that 
his son, instead of being the enemy of the Earl of Leicester, 
was (for the time) his friend. It fell out, therefore, that these 
two earls joined their forces, took several of the royal castles 
in the country, and advanced as hard as they could on London. 
The London people, always opposed to the king, declared for 
them with great joy. The king himself remained shut up, not 
at all gloriously, in the Tower. Prince Edward made the best 
of his way to Windsor Castle. His mother,the queen,attempted 
to follow him by water ; but the people, seeing her barge row- 
ing up the river, and hating her with all their hearts, ran to 
London Bridge, got together a quantity of stones and mud, and 
pelted the barge as it came through, crying furiously, " Drown 
the witch ! Drown her ! " They were so near doing it, that 
the Mayor took the old lady under his protection, and shut her 
up in St. Paul's until the danger was past. 

It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a 
great deal of reading on yours, to follow the king through his 
disputes with the barons, and to follow the barons through 
their disputes with one another ; so I will make short work of 
it for both of us, and only relate the chief events which arose 
out of these quarrels. The good king of France was asked to 
decide between them. He gave it as his opinion that the king 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD 115 

must maintain the Great Charter, and that the barons must 
give up the Committee of Government, and all the rest that 
had been done by the Parliament at Oxford, which the royal- 
ists, or king's party, scornfully called the Mad Parliament. 
The barons declared that these were not fair terms, and they 
would not accept them. Then they caused the great bell of 
St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing up the Lon- 
don people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound, and 
formed quite an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, how- 
ever, that instead of falling upon the king's party, with whom 
their quarrel was, they fell upon the miserable Jews, and killed 
at least five hundred of them. They pretended that some of 
these Jews were on the king's side, and that they kept hidden 
in their houses, for the destruction of the people, a certain ter- 
rible composition called Greek Fire, which could not be put 
out with water, but only burnt the fiercer for it. What they 
really did keep in their houses was money; and this their cruel 
enemies wanted ; and this their cruel enemies took, like rob- 
bers and murderers. 

The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these Lon- 
doners, and other forces, and followed the king to Lewes m 
Sussex, where he lay encamped with his army. Before giving 
the king's forces battle here, the earl addressed his soldiers, 
and said that King Henry the Third had broken so many oaths 
that he had become the enemy of God, and therefore they 
would wear white crosses on their breasts, as if they were 
arrayed, not against a fellow-Christian, but against a Turk. 
White-crossed, accordingly, they rushed into the fight. They 
would have lost the day, — the king having on his side all the 
foreigners in England ; and from Scotland, John Comyn, John 
Baliol, and Robert Bruce, .with all their men, — but for the im- 
patience of Prince Edward, who, in his hot desire to have ven- 
geance on the people of London, threw the whole of his father's 
army into confusion. He was taken prisoner; so was the 
king ; so was the king's brother, the King of the Romans ; and 
five thousand Englishmen were left dead upon the bloody 
grass. 

For this success the pope excommunicated the Earl of Lei- 
cester, which neither the earl nor the people cared at all about. 
The people loved him and supported him ; and he became the 
real king, having all the power of the government in his own 
hands, though he was outwardly respectful to King Henry the 
Third, whom he took with him wherever he went, like a poor 
old limp court-card He summoned a parliament (in the ^eai 



,l6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

1265), which was the first parKament in England that the peo 
pie had any real share in electing ; and he grew more and more 
in favor with the people every day, and they stood by him in 
whatever he did. 

Many of the other barons, and particularly the Earl of 
Gloucester, who had become by this time as proud as his 
father, grew jealous of this powerful and popular earl, who was 
proud too, and began to conspire against him. Since the bat 
tie of Lewes, Prince Edward had been kept as a hostage, and, 
though he was otherwise treated like a prince, had never been 
allowed to go out without attendants appointed by the Earl of 
Leicester, who watched him. The conspiring lords found 
means to propose to him, in secret, that they should assist him 
to escape, and should make hnn their leader ; to which he very 
heartily consented. 

So on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his attendants 
after dinner (being then at Hereford), '* I should like to ride on 
horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way into the country." 
As they, too, thought it would be very pleasant to have a can- 
ter in the sunshine, they all rode out of the town together in 
a gay little troop. When they came to "a fine level piece of 
turf, the prince fell to comparing their horses one with another, 
and offering bets that one was faster than another ; and the at' 
tendants suspecting no harm, rode galloping matches until their 
horses were quite tired. The prince rode no matches himself, 
but looked on from his saddle, and staked his money. Thus 
they passed the whole merry afternoon. Now the sun was set- 
ting, and they were all going slowly up a hill, the prince's horse 
very fresh and all the other horses very weary, when a strange 
rider mounted on a gray steed appeared at the top of the hill, 
and waved his hat. " What does the fellow mean t " said the 
attendants, one to another. The prince answered on the instant 
by setting spurs to his horse, dashing away at his utmost speed, 
joining the man, riding into the midst of a little crowd of horse- 
men, who were then seen waiting under some trees, and who 
closed around him ; and so he departed in a cloud of dust, 
leaving the road empty of all but the baffled attendants, who 
sat looking at one another, while their horses drooped their 
ears and panted. 

The prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The 
Earl of Leicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old 
king was at Hereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, 
Simon de Montfort, with another part of the army, was in Sus- 
sex. To prevent these two parts from uniting was the prince's 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD. 



117 



fw'st object. He attacked Simon de Montfort by night, de« 
feated him, seized his banners and treasure, and forced him 
into Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, which belonged to his 
iamily. 

His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the mean while, not 
knowing what had happened, marched out of Hereford with 
his part of the army and the king to meet him. He came on 
a bright morning in August to Evesham, which is watered by 
the pleasant river Avon. Looking rather anxiously across the 
prospect towards Kenilworth, he saw his own banners advanc- 
ing, and his face brightened with joy. But it clouded darkly 
when he presently perceived that the banners were captured 
and in the enemy's hands, and he said, " It is over. The 
Lord have mercy on our souls ! for our bodies are Prince Ed- 
ward's." 

He fought like a true knight, nevertheless. When his horse 
was killed under him, he fought on foot. It was a fierce bat- 
tle, and the dead lay in heaps everywhere. The old king, 
stuck up in a suit of armor on a big war-horse, which didn't 
mind him at all, and which carried him into all sorts of places 
where he didn't want to go, got into everybody's way, and very 
nearly got knocked on the head by one of his son's men. But 
he managed to pipe out, " I am Harry of Winchester ! " and 
the prince, who heard him, seized his bridle, and took him out 
of peril. The Earl of Leicester still fought bravely, until his 
best son, Henry, was killed, and the bodies of his best friends 
choked his path ; and then he fell, still fighting, sword in hand. 
They mangled his body, and sent it as a present to a noble 
lady,— but a very unpleasant lady, I should think, — who was 
the wife of his worst enemy. They could not mangle his mem- 
ory in the minds of the faithful people, though. Many years 
afterwards they loved him more than ever, and regarded him 
as a saint, and always spoke of him as " Sir Simon the Right- 
eous." 

And even though he was dead, the cause for which he had 
fought still lived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the 
king in the very hour of victory. Henry found himself obliged 
to respect the Great Charter, however much he hated it, and to 
snake laws similar to the laws of the great Earl of Leicester, 
and to be moderate and forgiving towards the people at last,— 
even towards the people of London, who had so long opposed 
him. There were more risings before all this was done \ but 
they were set at rest by these means, and Prince Edward did 
his best in all things to restcwe peace. One Sir Adam d« 



Il8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF EN-GLAND. 

Gordon was the last dissatisfied knight in arms j but the prince 
vanquished him in single combat, in a wood, and nobly gave 
him his life and became his friend, tnstead of slaying him. Sil 
Adam was not ungrateful. He ever afterwards remained 
devoted to his generous conqueror. 

When the troubles of the kingdom were thus calmed, Prince 
Edward and his cousin Henry took the cross, and went awaj 
to the Holy Land, with many English lords and knights. Foui. 
years afterwards the King of the Romans died \ and next year 
(1272), his brother, the weak King of England, died. He was 
sixty-eight years old then, and had reigned fifty-six years. He 
was as much of a king in death as he had ever been in life. 
He was the mere pale shadow of a king at all times. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, CALLED LONGSHANKS. 

It was now the year of our Lord 1272 ; and Prince Edward, 
the heir to the throne, being away in the Holy Land, knew noth- 
ing of his father's death. The barons, however, proclaimed 
him king, immediately after the royal funeral ; and the people 
very willingly consented, since most men knew too well by this 
time what the horrors of a contest for the crown were. So 
King Edward the First, called, in a not very complimentary 
manner, Longshanks, because of the slenderness of his legs, 
was peacefully accepted by the English nation. 

His legs had need to be strong, however long and thin they 
were ; for they had to support him through many difficulties on 
the fiery sands of Asia, where his small force of soldiers fainted, 
died, deserted, and seemed to melt away. But his prowess 
made light of it ; and he said. "" I "all go on, if I go on with no 
other follower than my groom ! " 

A prince of this spirit gave the Turks a deal of trouble. 
He stormed Nazareth, at which place, of all places on earth, I 
am sorry to relate, he made a frightful slaughter of innocenf 
people ; and then he went to Acre, where he got a truce of ten 
years from the Sultan. He had very nearly lost his life in 
Acre, through the treachery of a Saracen noble, called the Emir 
of Jaffa, who, making the pretence that he had some idea of 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST. n^ 

turning Christian, and wanted to know all about that religion, 
sent a trusty messenger to Edward, very often, — with a dagger 
in his sleeve. At last, one Friday, in Whitsun-week, when it 
was very hot. and all the sandy prospect lay beneath the blazing 
sun, burnt u^ like a great overdone biscuit, and Edward was 
lying on a couch, dressed for coolness in only a loose robe, the 
messenger, with his chocolate-colored face and his bright dark 
eyes and white teeth, came creeping in with a letter, and kneeled 
down like a tame tiger. But the moment Edward stretched out 
his hand to take the letter, the tiger made a spring at his heart. 
He was quick, but Edward was quick too. He seized the trai- 
tor by his chocolate throat, threw him to the ground, and slew 
him with the very dagger he had drawn The weapon had struck 
Edward in the arm, and, although the wound itself was slight, 
it threatened to be mortal, for the blade of the dagger had been 
smeared with poison. Thanks, however, to a better surgeon 
than was often to be found in those times, and to some whole- 
some herbs, and, above all, to his faithful wife, Eleanor, who 
devotedly nursed him, and is said by some to have sucked the 
poison from the wound with her own red lips (which I am very 
willing to believe), Edward soon recovered and was sound 
again. 

As the king his father had sent entreaties to him to return 
home, he now began the journey. He had got as far as Italy, 
when he met messengers who brought him intelligence of the 
king's death. Hearing that all was quiet at home, he made no 
haste to return to his own dominions, but paid a visit to the 
pope, and went in state through various Italian towns, where 
he was welcomed with acclamations as a mighty champion of 
the cross from the Holy Land, and where he received presents 
of purple mantles and prancing horses, and went along in great 
triumph. The shouting people little knew that he was the last 
English monarch who would ever embark in a crusade, or that 
within twenty years every conquest which the Christians had 
made in the Holy Land, at the cost of so much blood, would 
be won back by the Turks. But all this came to pass. 

There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in 
France, called Chalons. When the king was coming towards 
the place on his way to England, a wily French lord, called the 
Count of Chalons, sent him a polite challenge to come with his 
knights and hold a fair tournament with the count and his 
knights, and make a day of it with sword and lance. It was 
represented to the king that the Count of Chalons was not to 
be trusted, and that, instead of a holiday-fight for mere she* 



120 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and in good humor, he secretly meant a real battle, in which 
the English should be defeated by superior force. 

The king, however, .. >thing afraid, went to the appointed 
place on the appointed diy with a thousand followers. When 
the count came with two thousand, and attacked the English 
in earnest, the English rushed at them with such valor, that 
the count's men and the count's horses soon began to be 
tumbled down all over the field. The count himself seized 
the king round the neck ; but the king tumbled him out of his 
saddle in return for the compliment, and, jumping from his 
own horse and standing over him, beat away at his iron armor 
like a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Even when the 
count owned himself defeated, and offered his sword, the king 
would not do him the honor to take it, but made him yield it up 
to a common soldier. There had been such fury shown in this 
fight, that it was afterwards called the little battle of Chalons. 

The English were very well disposed to be proud of their 
king after these adventures ; so, when he landed at Dover in, 
the year 1274 (being then thirty-six years old), and went on to 
Westminster where he and his good queen were crowned with 
great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. For the 
coronation feast there were provided, among other eatables, 
four hundred oxen, four hundred sheep, four hundred and fifty 
pigs, eighteen wild boars, three hundred flitches of bacon, and 
twenty thousand fowls.. The fountains and conduits in the 
streets flowed with red and white wine instead of water j the 
rich citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colors out of 
their windows to increase the beauty of the show, and threw 
out gold and silver by whole handfuls to make scrambles for the 
crowd. In short, there was such eating and drinking, such 
music and capering, such a ringing of bells and tossing of caps, 
such a shouting and singing and revelling, as the narrow over- 
hanging streets of old London City had not witnessed for many 
a long day. All the people were merry, — except the poor 
Jews, who, trembling within their houses, and scarcely daring to 
peep out, began to foresee that they would have to find the 
money for this joviality sooner or later. 

To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, I 
am sorry to add that in this reign they were most unmercifully 
piHaged. They were hanged in great numbers, on accusations 
of having clipped the king's coin, — which all kinds of people 
had done. They were heavily taxed ; they were disgracefully 
badged ; they were, on one day, thirteen years after the coro- 
nation, taken up with their wives and children, and thrown intt 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST. 12 f 

beastly prisons, until they purchased their release by paying to 
the king twelve thousand pounds. Finally, every kind of prop- 
erty belonging to them was seized by the king, except so little 
as would defray the charge of their taking themselves away into 
foreign countries. Many years elapsed before the hope of gain 
induced any of their race to return to England, where they had 
been treated so heartlessly and had suffered so much. 

If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to Chris- 
tians as he was to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. But 
he was, in general, a wise and great monarch, under whom the 
country much improved. He had no love for the Great Charter, 
— few kings had, through many, many years, — but he had high 
qualities. The first bold object which he conceived when he 
came home was to unite under one sovereign England, Scot- 
land, and Wales ; the two last of which countries had each a 
little king of its own, about whom the people were always quar- 
relling and fighting, and making a prodigious disturbance, — a 
great deal more than he was worth. In the course of King 
Edward's reign, he was engaged besides in a war with France. 
To make these quarrels clearer, we will separate their histories 
and take them thus : Wales, first ; France, second ; Scotland, 
third. 

Llewellyn was the Prince of Wales. He had been on the 
side of the barons in the reign of the stupid old king, but had 
afterwards sworn allegiance to him. When King Edward came 
to the throne, Llewellyn was required to swear allegiance to 
him also, which he refused to do. The king being crowned 
and in his own dominions, three times more required Llewellyn 
to come and do homage ; and three times more Llewellyn said 
he would rather not. He was going to be married to Eleanoi 
de Montfort, a young lady of the family mentioned in the last 
reign ; and it chanced that this young lady, coming from France 
with her youngest brother, Emeric, was taken by an English 
ship, and was ordered by the English king to be detained. 
Upon this the quarrel came to a head. The king went with 
his fleet to the coast of Wales, where so encompassing Lle- 
wellyn that he could only take refuge in the bleak mountain 
region of Snowdon, in which no provisions could reach him, 
he was soon starved into an apology, and into a treaty of peace^ 
and into paying the expenses of the war. The king, how- 
ever, forgave him some of the hardest conditions of the treaty 
and consented to his marriage. And he now thought he had 
reduced Wales to obedience. 

But the Welch, although they were naturally a gentle, quiets 



122 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

pleasant people, who liked to' receive strangers in their cottages 
among the mountains, and to set before them with free hospi- 
tality whatever they had to eat and drink, and to play to them 
on their harps, and sing their native ballads to them, were a 
people of great spirit when their blood was up. Englishmen, 
after this affair, began to be insolent in Wales, and to assume 
the air of masters ; and the Welsh pride could not bear it. 
Moreover, they believed in that unlucky old Merlin, some of 
whose unlucky old prophecies somebody always seemed doomed 
to remember when there was a chance of its doing harm j and 
just at this time some blind old gentleman, with a harp and a 
long white beard, who was an excellent person, but had become 
of an unknown age and tedious, burst out with a declaration, 
that Merlin had predicted that when English money had be- 
come round, a prince of Wales would be crowned in London. 
Now King Edward had recently forbid the English penny to be 
cut into halves and quarters for halfpence and farthings, and 
had actually introduced a round coin; therefore the Welsh 
people said this was the time Merlin meant, and rose accord- 
ingly. 

King Edward had bought over Prince David, Llewellyn's 
brother, by heaping favors upon him ; but he was the first to 
revolt, being perhaps troubled in his conscience. One stormy 
night, he surprised the Castle of Hawarden, in possession of 
which an English nobleman had been left, killed the whole 
garrison, and carried off the nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. 
Upon this, the Welsh people rose like one man. King Edward, 
with his army, marching from Worcester to the Menai Strait, 
crossed it — near to where the wonderful tubular iron bridge 
now, in days so different, makes a passage for railway trains— 
by a bridge of boats that enabled forty men to march abreast. 
He subdued the Island of Anglesea, and sent his men forward 
to observe the enemy. The sudden appearance of the Welsh 
created a panic among them, and they fell back to the bridge. 
The tide had in the mean time risen, and separated the boats ; 
the Welsh pursumg them, they were driven into the sea, and 
there they sunk, m their heavy iron armor, by thousands. After 
this victory, Llewellyn, helped by the severe winter-weather of 
Wales, gained another battle ; but the king ordermg a portion 
of his English army to advance through South Wales, and 
" catch him between two foes, and Llewellyn bravely turning to 
meet this new enemy, he was surprised and killed, — very meanly, 
for he was unarmed and defenceless llis head was struck off, 
and sent to London, where it was fixed upon the Tower, encir 



^ ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST. 123 

Cled with a wreath, some say of ivy, some say of willow, some 
say of silver, to make it look like a ghastly coin in ridicule of 
the prediction. 

David, however, still held out for six months, though eagerly 
sought after by the king, and hunted by his own countrymen. 
One of them finally betrayed him, with his wife and childrea 
He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered ; and 
from that time this became the established punishment of traitors 
in England, — a punishment wholly without excuse, as being re- 
volting, vile, and cruel, after its object is dead ; and which has 
no sense in it, as its only real degradation (and that nothing 
can blot out) is to the country that permits on any considera- 
tion such abominable barbarity. 

Wales was now subdued. The queen giving birth to a 
young prince in the Castle of Carnarvon, the king showed him 
to the Welsh people as their countryman, and called him Prince 
of Wales, — a title that has ever since been borne by the heir- 
apparent to the English throne, which that little prince soon 
became by the death of his elder brother. The king did better 
things for the Welsh than that by, improving their laws and en- 
couraging their trade. Disturbances still took place, chiefly 
occasioned by the avarice and pride of the English lords, on 
whom Welsh lands and castles had been bestowed ; but they 
were subdued, and the country never rose again. There is a 
legend, that, to prevent the people from being incited to rebel- 
lion by the songs of their bards and harpers, Edward had them 
all put to death. Some of them may have fallen among other 
men who held out against the king ; but this general slaughter 
is, I think, a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, I dare say, 
made a song about it many years afterwards, and sang it by 
the Welsh firesides until it came to be believed. 

The foreign war of the reign of Edward the First arose in 
this way. The crews of two vessels, one a Norman ship and 
the other an English ship, happened to go to the same place in 
their boats to fill their casks with fresh water. Being rough, 
angry fellows, they began to quarrel, and then to fight, — the 
English with their fists, the Normans with their knives, — and 
in the fight a Noiman was killed. The Norman crew, instead 
of revenging themselves upon those English sailors with whom 
they had quarrelled (who were too strong for them, I suspect), 
took to their ship again in a great rage, attacked the first En- 
glish ship they met, laid hold of an unoffending merchant who 
happened to be on board, and brutally hanged him in the 
rigging of their own vessel with a dog at his feet. This so 
6 



124 ^ CHILUS HIS TOR Y OF ENGLAND. 

enraged the English sailors that there was no restraining them ; 
and whenever and wherever English sailors met Norman sailors 
they fell upon each other tooth and nail. The Irish and Dutch 
sailors took part with the English j the French and Genoese 
sailors helped the Normans ; and thus the greater part of the 
mariners sailing over the sea became, in their way, as violent 
and raging as the sea itself when it is disturbed. 

King Edward's fame had been so high abroad, that he had 
been chosen to decide a difference between France and another 
foreign power, and had lived upon the Continent three years. 
At first neither he nor the French king Philip (the good Louis 
had been dead some time) interfered in these quarrels ; but when 
a fleet of eighty English ships engaged and utterly defeated a 
Norman fleet of two hundred, in a pitched battle fought round 
a ship at anchor, in which no quarter was given, the matter 
became too serious to be passed over. King Edward, as Duke 
of Guienne, was summoned to present himself before the King 
of France at Paris, and answer for the damage done by his 
sailor subjects. At first he sent the Bishop of London as his 
representative, and then his brother Edmund, who was married 
to the French queen's mother. I am afraid Edmund was an 
easy man, and allowed himself to be talked over by his charm- 
ing relations, the French court ladies ; at all events, he was 
induced to give up his brother's dukedom forty days, — as a 
mere form, the French king said, to satisfy his honor, — and he 
was so very much astonished when the time was out, to find 
that the French king had no idea of giving it up again, that I 
should not wonder if it hastened his death, which soon took 
place. 

Kmg Edward was a king to win his foreign dukedom back 
again, if it could be won by energy and valor. He raised a 
large army, renounced his allegiance as Duke of Guienne, and 
crossed the sea to carry war into France. Before any import- 
ant battle was fought, however, a truce was agreed upon for two 
years, and in the course of that time the pope effected a recon^ 
ciliation. King Edward, who was now a widower, having lost 
his affectionate and good wife, Eleanor, married the French 
king's sister, Margaret ; and the Prince of Wales was contracted 
to the French king's daughter, Isabella. 

Out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. Out of 
this hanging of the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and 
strife it caused, there came to be established one of the greatest 
powers that the English people now possess. The preparations 
for the war being very expensive, and King Edward greatly 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, 12^ 

wanting money, and being very arbitrary in his ways of raising 
it, some of the barons began firmly to oppose him. Two of 
them in particular, Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and 
Roger Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, were so stout against him that 
they maintained he had no right to command them to head his 
forces in Guienne, and flatly refused to go there. " By Heaven, 
Sir Earl," said the king to the Earl of Hereford, in a great pas- 
sion, " you shall either go or be hanged ! " " By Heaven, Sir 
King," replied the earl, '' I will neither go nor yet will I be 
hanged ; " and both he and the other earl sturdily left the court, 
attended by many lords. The king tried every means of raising 
money. He taxed the clergy, in spite of all the pope said to the 
contrary , and when they refused to pay reduced them to sub- 
mission by saying, very well, then they had no claim upon the 
government for protection, and any man might plunder them 
who would, — which a good many men were very ready to do, 
and very readily did, and which the clergy found too losing a 
game to be played at long. He seized all the wool and leathei 
in the hands of the merchants, promising to pay for it some fine 
day ; and he set a tax upon the exportation of wool, which was 
so unpopular among the traders that it was called " The evil 
toll." But all would not do. The barons led by those two 
great earls, declared any taxes imposed without the consent of 
Parliament unlawful ; and the Parliament refused to impose taxes 
until the king should confirm afresh the two Great Charters, 
and should solemnly declare in writing that there was no power 
in the country to raise money from the people evermore but 
the power of Parliament representing all ranks of the people. 
The king was very unwilling to diminish his own power by 
allowing this great privilege in the Parliament ; but there was 
no help for it, and he at last complied. We shall come to an- 
other king, by and by, who might have saved his head from 
rolling off, if he had profited by this example. 

The people gained other benefits in Parliament from the 
good sense and wisdom of this king. Many of the laws were 
much improved ; provision was made for the greater safety of 
travellers, and the apprehension of thieves and murderers ; the 
priests were prevented from holding too much land, and so be- 
coming too powerful ; and justices of the peace were first ap- 
pointed (though not at first under that name) in various parts 
of the country. 

And now we come to Scotland, which was the great and 
lasting trouble of the reign of King Edward the First. 



f26 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

About thirteen years after King Edward's coronation, Ale* 
ander the Third, the King of Scotland, died of a fall from his 
horse. He had been married to Margaret, King Edward's 
sister. All their children being dead, the Scottish crown be- 
came the right of a young princess only eight years old, the 
daughter of Eric, King of Norway, who had married a daughter 
of the deceased sovereign. King Edward proposed that the 
Maiden of Norway, as this princess was called, should be 
engaged to be married to his eldest son ; but unfortunately, as 
she was coming over to England, she fell sick, and, landing on 
one of the Orkney Islands, died there. A great commotion 
immediately began in Scotland, where as many as thirteen noisy 
claimants to the vacant throne started up, and made a general 
confusion. 

King Edward being much renowned for his sagacity and 
justice, it seems to have been agreed to refer the dispute to him. 
He accepted the trust, and went with an army to the Border- 
land where England and Scotland joined. There, he called 
upon the Scottish gentlemen to meet him at the Castle of Norham 
on the English side of the River Tweed ; and to that castle they 
came. But, before he would take any step in the busines^s, he 
required those Scottish gentlemen, one and all, to do homage to 
him as their superior lord ; and when they hesitated, he said, 
" By holy Edward, whose crown I wear, I will have my rights, 
or I will die in maintaining them ! " The Scottish gentlemen, 
who had not expected this, were disconcerted, and asked for 
three weeks to think about it. 

At the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, 
on a green plain on the Scottish side of the river. Of all the 
competitors for the Scottish throne, there were only two who 
had any real claim, in right of their near kindred to the royal 
family. These were John Baliol and Robert Bruce ; and the 
right was, I have no doubt, on the side of John Baliol. At this 
particular meeting John Baliol was not present, but Robert 
Bruce was ; and on Robert Bruce being formally asked whether 
he acknowledged the King of England for his superior lord, he 
answered plainly and distinctly. Yes, he did. Next day John 
Baliol appeared, and said the same. This point settled, some 
arrangements were made for inquiring into their titles. 

The inquiry occupied a pretty long time, — more than a 
year. While it was going on. King Edward took the oppor- 
tunity of making a journey through Scotland, and calling 
upon the Scottish people of all degrees to acknowledge them- 
selves his vassals, or be imprisoned until they did. In the 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST. 12^ 

meanwhile, commissioners were appointed to conduct the in 
quiry, a parliament was held at Berwick about it, the two 
claimants were heard at full length, and tkere was a vast 
amount of talking. At last, in the great hall of the Castle of 
Berwick, the king gave judgment in favor of John Baliol ; who, 
consenting to receive his crown by the King of England's favor 
and permission, was crowned at Scone, in an old stone chair 
which had been used for ages in the abbey there, at the cor- 
onation of the Scottish kings. Then King Edward caused the 
great seal of Scotland, used since the late king's death, to be 
broken in four pieces, and placed in the English treasury ; and 
considered that he now had Scotland (according to the common 
saying) under his thumb. 

Scotland had a strong will of its own yet, however. King 
Edward determined that the Scottish king should not forget he 
was his vassal, summoned him repeatedly to come and defend 
himself and his judges before the English Parliament when ap- 
peals from the decisions of Scottish courts of justice were 
being heard. At length John Baliol, who had no great heart 
of his own, had so much heart put into him by the brave spirit 
of the Scottish people, who took this as a national insult, that 
he refused to come any more. Thereupon, the king further re- 
quired him to help him in his war abroad (which was then in 
progress), and to give up, as security for his good behavior in 
future, the three strong Scottish castles of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, 
and Berwick. Nothing of this being done, — on the contrary, 
the Scottish people concealing their king among their mountains 
in the highlands, and showing a determination to resist, — 
Edward marched to Berwick with an army of thirty thousand 
foot, and four thousand horse, took the castle, and slew its 
whole garrison, and the inhabitants of the town as well, — men, 
women, and children. Lord Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, then 
went on to the Castle of Dunbar, before which a battle was 
fought, and the whole Scottish army defeated with great slaugh- 
ter. The victory being complete, the Earl of Surrey was left 
as guardian of Scotland \ the principal ofhces in that kingdom 
were given to Englishmen ; the more powerful Scottish nobles 
were obliged to come and live in England ; the Scottish crown 
and sceptre were brought away ; and e\ en the old stone chair 
was carried off, and placed in Westminster Abbey, where you 
may see it now. Baliol had the Tower of London lent him for 
a residence, with permission to range about within a circle of 
twenty miles. Three years afterwards he was allowed to go 
to Norm.andy, where he had estates, and where he passed the 



128 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

remaining six years of his life ; far more happily, I daresay, 
than he had lived for a long while in angry Scotland. 

Now there was, in the west of Scotland, a gentleman of 
small fortune, named William Wallace, the second son of a 
Scottish knight. He was a man of great size and great strength ; 
he was very brave and daring ; when he spoke to a body of his 
countrymen, he could rouse them in a wonderful manner by 
the power of his burning words ; he loved Scotland dearly, and 
he hated England with his utmost might. The domineering 
conduct of the English, who now held the places of trust in 
Scotland, made them as intolerable to the proud Scottish peo- 
ple as they had been under similar circumstances to the Welsh ; 
and no man in all Scotland regarded them with so much smoth- 
ered rage as William Wallace. One day an Englishman in 
office, little knowing what he was, affronted hwi. Wallace in- 
stantly struck him dead ; and taking refuge among the rocks 
and hills, and there joining with his countrymen. Sir William 
Douglas who was also in arms against King Edward, became 
the most resolute and undaunted champion of a people strug 
gling for their independence that ever lived upon the earth. 

The English guardian of the kingdom fled before him ; and, 
thus encouraged, the Scottish people revolted everywhere, and 
fell upon the English without mercy. The Earl of Surrey, by 
the king's commands, raised all the power of the border coun- 
ties, and two English armies poured into Scotland. Only one 
chief, in the face of those armies, stood by Wallace, who, with 
a force of forty thousand men, awaited the invaders at a place 
on the River Forth, within two miles of Stirling. Across the 
river there was only one poor wooden bridge, called the Bridge 
of Kildean, — so narrow that but two men could cross it abreast. 
With his eyes upon this bridge, Wallace posted the greater part 
of his men among some rising grounds, and waited calmly. 
When the English army came up on the opposite bank of the 
river, messengers were sent forward to offer terms. Wallace 
sent them back with a defiance, in the name of the freedom of 
Scotland. Some of the officers of the Earl of Surrey, in com- 
mand of the English, with their eyes also on the bridge, 
advised him to be discreet and not hasty. He, however, urged 
to immediate battle by some other officers, and particularly by 
Cressingham, King Edward's treasurer, and a rash man, gave 
the word of command to advance. One thousand English 
crossed the bridge, two abreast ; the Scottish troops were as 
motionless as stone images. Two ihousand English crossed j 
three thousand, four thousand, five. Not a feather, all this 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST, 129 

time, had been seen to stir among the Scottish bonnets. Now 
they all fluttered. " Forward, one party, to the foot of the 
bridge ! " cried Wallace, " and let no more English cross ! The 
rest, down with me on the five thousand who have come over, 
and cut them all to pieces ! " It was done, in the sight of the 
whole remainder of the English army, who could give no help. 
Cressingham himself was killed, and the Scotch made whips 
for their horses of his skin. 

King Edward was abroad at this time, and during the suc- 
cesses on the Scottish side which followed, and which enabled 
bold Wallace to win the whole country back again, and even to 
ravage the English borders. But, after a few winter months, 
the king returned and took the field with more than his usual 
energy. One night, when a kick from his horse, as they both 
lay on the ground together, broke two of his rilDs, and a cry 
arose that he was killed, he leaped into his saddle, regardless 
of the pain he suffered, and rode through the camp. Day then 
appearing, he gave the w^ord (still, of course, in that bruised and 
aching state) forward ! and led his army on to near Falkirk, 
where the Scottish forces were seen drawn up on some stony 
ground, behind a morass. Here he defeated Wallace, and 
killed fifteen thousand of his men. With the shattered remain- 
der, Wallace drew back to Stirling ; but being pursued, set fire 
to the town that it might give no help to the English, and 
escaped. The inhabitants of Perth afterwards set fire to their 
houses for the same reason ; and the king, unable to find pro- 
visions, was forced to withdraw his army. 

Another Robert Bruce, the grandson of him who had dis- 
puted the Scottish, crown with Baliol, was now in arms against 
the king (that elder Bruce being dead), and also John Comyn, 
Baliol's nephew. These two young men might agree in oppos- 
ing Edward, but could agree in nothing else, as they were rivals 
for the throne of Scotland. Probably it was because they knew 
this, and knew what troubles must arise, even if they could 
hope to get the better of the great English king, that the prin- 
cipal Scottish people applied to the pope for his interference. 
The pope, on the principle of losing nothing for want of trying 
to get it, very coolly claimed that Scotland belonged to him ; but 
this was a little too much, and the Parliament in a friendly 
manner told him so. 

In the spring time of the year 1303, the king sent Sir John 
Segrave, whom he made Governor of Scotland, with twenty 
thousand men to reduce the rebels. Sir John was not as care- 
ful as he should have been, but encamped at Roselyn, near 



I30 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Edinburgh, with his army divided into three parts. The Scot- 
tish forces saw their advantage, fell on each part separately, 
defeated each, and killed all the prisoners. Then came the 
king himself once more, as soon as a great army could be 
raised ; he passed through the whole north of Scotland, laying 
waste whatsoever came in his way ; and he took up his winter- 
quarters at Dunfermline. The Scottish cause now looked so 
hopeless, that Comyn and the other nobles made submission, 
and received their pardons. Wallace alone stood out. He 
was invited to surrender, though on no distinct pledge that his 
life should be spared ; but he still defied the ireful king, and 
lived among the steep crags of the Highland glens, where the 
eagles made their nests, and where the mountain torrents 
roared, and the white snow was deep, and the bitter winds blew 
round his unsheltered head, as he lay through many a pitch- 
dark night wrapped up in his plaid. Nothing could break his 
spirit ; nothing could lower his courage ; nothing could induce 
him to forget or to forgive his country's wrongs. Even when 
the Castle of Stirling, which had long held out, was besieged 
by the king with every kind of military engine then in use : 
even when the lead upon cathedral roofs was taken down to 
help to make them ; even when the king, though an old man, 
commanded in the siege as if he were a youth, being so resolved 
to conquer ; even when the brave garrison (then found with 
amazement to be not two hundred people, including several 
ladies) were starved and beaten out, and were made to submit 
on their knees and with every form of disgrace that could ag- 
gravate their sufferings, — even then, when there was not a ray 
of hope in Scotland, William Wallace was as proud and firm 
as if he had beheld the powerful and relentless Edward lying 
dead at his feet. 

Who betrayed William Wallace in the end is not quite cer- 
tain. That he was betrayed^probably by an attendant — is 
too true. He was taken to the Castle of Dumbarton, under 
Sir John Menteith, and hence to London, where the great fame 
of his bravery and resolution attracted immense concourses of 
people to behold him. He was tried in Westminster Hall, 
with a crown of laurel on his head,— it is supposed because he 
was reported to have said that he ought to wear, or that he 
would wear, a crown there, — and was found guilty as a robber, 
a murderer, and a traitor. What they called a robber (he said 
to those who tried him), he was, because he had taken spoil 
from the king's men. What they called a murderer, he was, 
because he had slain an insolent Englishman. What they 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIRST. 131 

called a traitor, he was not, for he had never sworn allegtance 
to the king, and had ever scorned to do it. He was dragged 
at the tails of horses to West Smithfield, and there hanged on 
a high gallows, torn open before he was dead, beheaded, and 
quartered. His head was set upon a pole on London Bridge, 
his right arm was sent to Newcastle, his left arm to Berwick, 
his legs to Perth and Aberdeen. But if King Edward had had 
his body cut into inches, and had sent every separate inch into 
a separate town, he could not have dispersed it half so far and 
wide as his fame. Wallace will be remembered in songs and 
stories while there are songs and stories in the English tongue \ 
and Scotland will hold him dear while her lakes and moun- 
tains last. 

Released from this dreaded enemy, the king made a fairer 
plan of government for Scotland, divided the offices of honor 
among Scottish gentlemen and English gentlemen, forgave past 
offences, and thought, in his old age, that his work was done. 

But he deceived himself. Comyn and Bruce conspired, 
and made an appointment to meet at Dumfries, in the church 
of the Minorites. Tl^ere is a story that Comyn was false to 
Bruce, and had informed against him to the king ; that Bruce 
was warned of his danger and the necessity of flight, by re- 
ceiving one night as he sat at supper, from his friend the Earl 
of Gloucester, twelve pennies and a pair of spurs ; that as he 
was riding angrily to keep his appointment (through a snow- 
storm, with his horse's shoes reversed that he might not be 
tracked), he met an evil-looking serving-man, a messenger of 
Comyn, whom he killed, and concealed in whose dress he 
found letters that proved Comyn's treachery. However this 
may be, they were likely enough to quarrel in any case, being 
hot-headed rivals ; and, whatever they quarrelled about, they 
certainly did quarrel in the church where they met ; and Bruce 
drew his dagger, and stabbed Comyn, who fell upon the pave- 
ment. When Bruce came out, pale and disturbed, the friends 
who were waiting for him asked what was the matter ? "I 
think I have killed Comyn," said he. "You only think so ? " 
returned one of them ; " I jwill make sure ! " and going into the 
church and finding him alive, stabbed him again and again. 
Knowing that the king would never forgive this new deed of vio- 
lence, the party then declared Bruce King of Scotland ; got him 
crowned at Scone, — without the chair ; and set up the rebellious 
standard once again. 

When the king heard of it, he kindled with fiercer anger 
than he had ever shown yet. He caused the Prince of Wales 



1^2 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and two hundred and seventy of the young nobility to b« 
knighted, — the trees in the Temple Gardens were cut down to 
make room for their tents, and they watched their armor all 
night, according to the old usage, some in the Temple Church, 
some in Westminster Abbey ; — and at the public feast which' 
then took place, he swore, by Heaven, and by two swans 
covered with gold network which his minstrels placed upon 
the table, that he would avenge the death of Comyn, and would 
punish the false Bruce. And before all the company, he 
charged the prince, his son, in case that he should die before 
accomplishing his vow, not to bury him until it was fulfilled. 
Next morning, the prince and" the rest of the young knights 
rode away to the Border-country to join the English army, and 
the king, now weak and sick, followed in a horse-litter. 

Bruce, after losing a battle, and undergoing many dangers 
and much misery, fled to Ireland, where he lay concealed 
through the winter. That winter, Edward passed in hunting 
down and executing Bruce's relations and adherents, sparing 
neither youth nor age, showing no touch of pity or sign of 
mercy. In the following spring Bruce reappeared, and gained 
some victories. In these frays, both sides were grievously 
cruel ; for instance, Bruce's two brothers, being taken captives, 
desperately wounded, were ordered by the king to instant execu- 
tion. Bruce's friend. Sir John Douglas, taking his own Castle 
of Douglas out of the hands of an English lord, roasted the 
dead bodies of the slaughtered garrison in a great fire made of 
every movable within it.; which dreadful cookery his men 
called the Douglas larder. Bruce, still successful, however, 
drove the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Gloucester into 
the Castle of Ayr, and laid siege to it. 

The king, who had been laid up all the winter, but had 
directed the army from his sick-bed, now advanced to Carlisle, 
and there, causing the litter in which he had travelled to be 
placed in the cathedral as an offering to Heaven, mounted his 
horse once more, and for the last time. He was npw sixty-nine 
years old, and had reigned thirty-five years. He was so 
ill, that in four days he could go no more than six miles ; still, 
even at that pace, he went on, and resolutely kept his face 
towards the Border. At length he lay down at the village of 
Burgh-upon-Sands ; and there, telling those around him to im- 
press upon the prince that he was to remember his father's vow, 
and was never to rest until he had thoroughly subdued Scot- 
land, he yielded up his last breath. 



JfGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND. 133 



CHAPTER XVII. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND. 

King Edward the Second, the first Prince of Wales, wai 
twenty-three years old when his father died. There was a cer- 
tain favorite of his, a young man from Gascony, named Piers 
Gaveston, of whom his father had so much disapproved that he 
had ordered him out of England, and had made his son swear 
by the side of his sick bed, never to bring him back. But the 
prince no sooner found himself king than he broke his oath, as 
so many other princes and kings did (they were far too ready to 
take oaths), and sent for his dear friend immediately. 

Now this same Gaveston was handsome enough, but was a 
reckless, insolent, audacious fellow. He was detested by the 
proud English lords ; not only because he had such power over 
the king, and made the court such a dissipated place, but also 
because he could ride better than they at tournaments, and was 
used, in his impudence, to cut very bad jokes on them, — calling 
one the old hog ; another the stage-player ; another the Jew ; 
another the black dog of Ardenne. This was as poor wit as 
need be, but it made those lords very wroth ; and the surly Earl 
of Warwick, who was the black dog, swore that the time should 
come when Piers Gaveston should feel the black dog's teeth. 

It was not come yet, however, nor did it seem to be coming. 
The king made him Earl of Cornwall, and gave him vast riches ; 
and when the king went over to France to marry the French 
princess, Isabella, daughter of Philip le Bel, who was said to be 
the most beautiful woman in the world, he made Gaveston regent 
of the Kingdom. His splendid marriage ceremony in the 
Church of Our Lady at Boulogne, where there were four kings 
and three queens present (quite a pack of court-cards, for I 
daresay the knaves were not wanting), being over, he seemed to 
care little or nothing for his beautiful wife, but was wild with im- 
patience to meet Gaveston again. 

When he landed at home, he paid no attention to anybody 
else, but ran into the favorite's arms before a great concourse of 
people, and hugged him, and kissed him, and called him his 
brother. At the coronation which soon followed, Gaveston was 
the richest and brightest of all the glittering company there^ 



tj^ A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and had the honor of carrying the crown. This made the proud 
lords fiercer than ever ; the people, too, despised the favorite, 
and wowld never call him Earl of Cornwall, however much he 
complained to the king and asked him to punish them for not 
doing so, but persisted in styling him plain Piers Gaveston. 

The barons were so unceremonious with the king in giving 
,him to understand that they would not bear this favorite, that 
the king was obliged to send him out of the country. The 
favorite himself was made to take an oath (more oaths !) that 
he would never come back ; and the barons supposed him to be 
banished in disgrace, until they heard that he was appointecf 
Governor of Ireland. Even this was not enough for the be- 
sotted king, who brought him home again in a year's time, and 
not only disgusted the court and the people by his doting folly^ 
but offended his beautiful wife, too, who never liked him after- 
wards. 

He had now the old royal want, — of money, — and the barons 
had the new power of positively refusing to let him raise any. 
He summoned a parliament at York j the barons refused to 
make one while the favorite was near him. He summoned 
another parliament at Westminster, and sent Gaveston away. 
Then the barons came completely armed, and appointed a com- 
mittee of themselves to correct abuses in the state, and in the 
king's household. He got some money on these conditions, 
and directly set off with Gaveston to the Border-country, where, 
they spent it in idling away the time and feasting, while Bruce 
made ready to drive the English out of Scotland. For, though 
the old king had even made this poor weak son of his swear (as 
some say) that he would not bury his bones, but would have 
them boiled clean in a caldron, and carried before the English 
army until Scotland was entirely subdued, the second Edward 
was so unlike the first that Bruce gained strength and power 
every day. 

The committee of'nobles, after some months of deliberation, 
ordained that the king should henceforth call a parliament to- 
gether once every year, and even twice if necessary, instead c 
summoning it only when he chose. Further, that Gavestoi, 
should once more be banished, and this time on pain of death 
if he ever came back. The king's tears were of no avail j he 
was obliged to send his favorite to Flanders. As soon as he 
had done so, however, he dissolved the parliament, with the 
low cunning of a mere fool, and set off to the north of England, 
thinking to get an army about him to oppose the nobles. And 
once again he brought Gaveston home, and heaped upon hiro 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND. 



^35 



all the riches and titles of which the barons had deprived 
him. 

The lords saw now that there was nothing for it but to put 
the favorite to death. They could have done so legally, accord- 
ing to the terms of his banishment ; but they did so, I am sorry 
to say, in a shabby manner. Led by the Earl of Lancaster, the 
king's cousin, they first of all attacked the king and Gavestor. 
at Newcastle. They had time to escape by sea ; and the mean 
king, having his precious Gaveston with him, was quite content 
to leave his lovely wife behind. When they were comparatively 
safe, they separated ; the king went to York to collect a force 
of soldiers, and the favorite shut himself up, in the meantime, 
m Scarborough Castle overlooking the sea. This was what the 
barons wanted. They knew that the castle could not hold out \ 
they attacked it, and made Gaveston surrender. He delivered 
\iimseif up to the Earl of Pembroke, — that lord whom he had 
called the Jew, — on the earl's pledging his faith and knightly 
word, that no harm should happen to him and no violence be 
done him. 

Now it was agreed with Gaveston, that he should be taken 
to the Castle of Wallingford, and there kept in honorable 
custody. They travelled as far as Dedington, near Banbury, 
where, in the castle of that place, they stopped for a night to 
rest. Whether the Earl of Pembroke left his prisoner there, 
knowing what would happen, or really left him, thinking no 
harm, and only going (as. he pretended) to visit his wife, the 
countess, who was in the neighborhood, is no great matter now ; 
in any case, he was bound as an honorable gentleman to protect 
his prisoner, and he did not do'it. In the morning, while the fa- 
vorite was yet in bed, he was required to dress himself, and come 
down into the court-yard. He did so without any mistrust, but 
started and turned pale when he found it full of strange armed 
men. " I think you know me ? " said the leader, also armed 
from head to foot. *' I am the black dog of Ardenne." 

The time was come when Piers Gaveston was to feel the 
black dog's teeth indeed. They set him on a mule, and carried 
him in mock state and with military music to the black dog's 
kennel, Warwick Castle, where a hasty council, composed of 
some great noblemen, considered what should be done with 
him. Some were for sparing him \ but one loud voice — it was 
the black dog's bark, I daresay — sounded through the castle 
hall, uttering these words, " You have the fox in your power. 
Let him go now, and you must hunt him again." 

They sentenced him to death. He threw himself at the fe^ 



136 ^ CHILD'S mSTORY OF ENGLAND. 

of the Earl of Lancaster, — the old hog ; but the old hog was af " 
savage as the dog. He was taken out upon the pleasant road 
leading from Warwick to Coventry, where the beautiful river 
Avon, by which, long afterwards, Wilham Shakespeare was 
born and now lies buried, sparkled in the bright landscape of 
the beautiful May-day ; and there they struck off his wretched 
head, and stained the dust with his blood. 

When the king heard of this black deed, in his grief and 
rage he denounced relentless war against his barons; and both 
sides were in arms for half a year. But it then became nec- 
essary for them to join their forces against Bruce, who had 
used the time well while they were divided, and had now a great 
power in Scotland. 

Intelhgence was brought that Bruce was then besieging 
Stirling Castle, and that the governor had been obliged to 
pledge himself to surrender it, unless he should be relieved be- 
fore a certain day. Hereupon the king ordered his nobles and 
their fighting men to meet him at Berwick ; but the nobles 
cared so little for the king, and so neglected the summons and 
lost time, that only on the day before that appointed for the 
surrender did the king find himself at Stirling, and even then 
with a smaller force than he had expected However, he had 
altogether a hundred thousand men, and Bruce had not more 
than forty thousand , but Bruce's army was strongly posted m 
three square columns, on the ground lying between the Burn, 
or Brook, of Bannock and the walls of Stirling Castle 

On the very evening when the king came up, Bruce did a 
brave act that encouraged his men He was seen by a certain 
Henry de Bohun, an English knight, riding about before his 
army on a little horse, with a light battle-axe in his hand, and a 
crown of gold on his head. This English knight, who was 
mounted on a strong war-horse, cased in steel, strongly armed, 
and able (as he thought) to overthrow Bruce by crushing him 
with his mere weight, set spurs to his great charger, rode on 
him, and made a thrust at him with his heavy spear. Bruce 
parried the thrust, and with one blow ot his battle-axe split his 
skull. 

The Scottish men did not forget this, next day, when the 
battle raged. Randolph, Bruce's valiant nephew, rode, with 
the small body of men he commanded, into such a host of the 
English, all shining in polished armor in the sunlight, that they 
seemed to be swallowed up and lost, as if they had plunged 
into the sea. But they fought so well, and did such dreadful 
execution, that the English staggered. Then came Bruce him- 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND. 



m 



self upon them, with all the rest of his army. While they were 
thus hard-pressed and amazed, there appeared upon the hills 
what they supposed to be a new Scottish army, but what were 
really only the camp-followers, in number fifteen thousand, 
whom Bruce had taught to show themselves at that place and 
time. The Earl of Gloucester, commanding the English horse^ 
made a last rush to change the fortune of the day, but Bruce 
(like Jack the Giant-killer in the story) had had pits dug in the 
ground, and covered over with turfs and stakes. Into these, as 
they gave way beneath the weight of the horses, riders and 
horses rolled by hundreds. The English were completely 
routed \ all their treasure, stores, and engines were taken by 
the Scottish men ; so many wagons and other wheeled vehicles 
were seized, that it is related that they would have reached, if 
they had been drawn out in a Hne, one hundred and eighty 
miles. The fortunes of Scotland were, for the time, completely 
changed ; and never was a battle won more famous upon 
Scottish ground than this great battle of Bannockburn. 

Plague and famine succeeded in England ; and still the 
powerless king and his disdainful lords were always in con- 
tention. Some of the turbulent chiefs of Ireland made pro- 
posals to Bruce to accept the rule of that country. He sent his 
brother Edward to them, who was crowned King of Ireland. 
He afterwards went himself to help his brother in his Irish 
wars; but his brother was defeated in the end and killed. 
Robert Bruce, returning to Scotland, still increased his strength 
there. 

As the king's ruin had begun in a favorite, so it seemed 
likely to end in one. He was too poor a creature to rely at all 
upon himself ; and his new favorite was one Hugh le Despenser, 
the son. of a gentleman of ancient family. Hugh was hand- 
some and brave ; but he was the favorite of a weak king, whom 
no man cared a rush for, and that was a dangerous place to 
hold. The nobles leagued against him, because the king liked 
him ; and they lay in wait both for his ruin and his father's. 
Now the king had married him to the daughter of the late Earl 
of Gloucester, and had given both him and his father great pos' 
sessions in Wales. In their endeavors to extend these, they 
gave violent offense to an angry Welsh gentleman, named John 
de Mowbray, and to divers other angry Welsh gentlemen, who 
resorted to arms, took their castles, and seized their estates. 
The Earl of Lancaster had first placed the favorite (who was a 
poor relation of .his own) at court, and he considered his own 
dignity offended by the preference he received and the honori 



138 ^ CHlf^^^S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

he acquired : so* he, and the barons who were his friends, 
joined the WeJshmen, marched on London, and sent a message 
to the king demanding to have the favorite and his father 
banished. At first the king unaccountably took it into his head 
to be spirited^ and to send them a bold reply , but when they 
quartered themselves around Holborn and Clerkenwell, and 
went down armed to the Parliament at Westminster, he gave 
Vvay, and complied wi'th their demands. 

His turn of triumph came sooner than he expected. It 
irojC out of an accidental circumstance. The beautiful queen, 
happening to be travelling, came one night to one of the royal 
castles, and demanded to be lodged and entertained there until 
morning. The governor of this castle, who was one of the en- 
raged lords, was away, and in his absence, his wife refused 
admission to the queen ; a scuffle took place among the com- 
mon men on either side, and some of the royal attendants were 
killed. The people, who cared nothing for the king, were very 
angry that their beautiful queen should be thus rudely treated 
in her own dominions ; and the king, taking advantage of this 
feeling, besieged the castle, took it, and then called the two 
Despensers home. Upon this the confederate lords and the 
Welshmen went over to Bruce. The king encountered them at 
Boroughbridge, gained the victory, and took a number of dis- 
tinguished prisoners ; among them, the Earl of Lancaster, now 
an old man, upon whose destruction he was resolved. This 
Earl was taken to his own castle of Pontefract, and there tried 
and found guilty by an unfair court appointed for the purpose ; 
he was not even allowed to speak in his own defence. He was 
insulted, pelted, mounted on a starved pony without saddle or 
bridle, carried out, and beheaded. Eight-and-twenty knights 
were hanged, drawn, and quartered. When the king had de- 
spatched this bloody work, and had made a fresh and a long 
truce with Bruce, he took the Despensers into greater favor 
than ever, and made the father Earl of Winchester. 

One prisoner, and an important one, who was taken at 
Boroughbridge, made his escape, however, and turned the tide 
against the king. This was Roger Mortimer, always resolutely 
opposed to him, who was sentenced to death, and placed foi 
safe custody in the Tower of London. He treated his guards 
to a quantity of wine intowhich he had put a sleeping potion ; 
\nd when they were insensible, broke out of his dungeon, got 
into a kitchen, climbed up the chimney, let himself down from 
the roof of the building with a rope-ladder, passed the sentries 
got down ta the river, and made away in a boat to wher« 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SECOND. 139 

servants and horses were waiting for him. He finally escaped 
to France, where Charles le Bel, the brother of the beautiful 
queen, was king. Charles sought to quarrel with the King of 
England, on pretence of his not having come to do him homage 
at his coronation. It was proposed that the beautiful queen 
should go over to arrange the dispute : she went, and wrote 
home to the king, that as he was sick and could not come to 
France himself, perhaps it would be better to send over the 
young prince, their son, who was only twelve years old, who 
could do homage to her brother in his stead, and in whose com- 
pany she would Immediately return. The king sent him ; but 
both he and the queen remained at the Fi^ench court, and Roger 
Mortimer became the queen's lover. 

When the king wrote, again and again, to the queen to come 
home, she did not reply that she despised him too much to live 
with him any more (which was the truth), but said she was 
afraid of the two Despensers. In short, her design was to over- 
throw the favorites' power, and the king's power, such as it 
was, and invade England. Having obtained a French force of 
two thousand men, and being joined by all the English exiles 
then in France, she landed, within a year, at Orewell, in Suffolk, 
where she was immediately joined by the Earls of Kent and 
Norfolk, the king's two brothers j by other powerful noblemen ; 
and lastly, by the first English general who was despatched to 
check her, who went over to her with all his men. The people 
of London, receiving these tidings, would do nothing for the 
king, but broke open the Tower, let out all his prisoners, and 
threw up their caps and hurrahed for the beautiful queen. 

The king, with his two favorites, fled to Bristol, where he 
left old Despenser in charge of the town and castle, while he 
went on with the son to Wales. The Bristol men being opposed 
to the king, and it being impossible fo hold the town with 
enemies everywhere within the walls, Despenser yielded it up 
on the third day, and was instantly brought to trial for having 
traitorously influenced what was called " the king's mind," — • 
though I doubt if the king ever had any. He was a venerable 
old man, upwards of ninety years of age ; but his age gained no 
respect or mercy. He was hanged, torn open while he was yet 
alive, cut up into pieces, and thrown to the dogs. His son 
was soon taken, tried at Hereford before the same judge, on a 
long series of foolish charges, found guilty, and hanged upon a 
gallows fifty feet high, with a chaplet of nettles round his head. 
His poor old father and he were innocent enough of any worse 
crimes than the crime of having been friends of a king, on 



14© A CfflLUS HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

whom, as a mere man, they would never have deigned to cast 
a favorable look. It is a bad crime, I know, and leads to 
worse ; but many lords and gentlemen — I even think some 
ladies, too, if I recollect right — have committed it in England, 
who have neither been given to the dogs, nor hanged up fift}) 
feet high. 

The wretched king was running here and there, all this time, 
and never getting anywhere in particular, until he gave himself 
up, and was taken off to Kenilworth Castle. When he was 
safely lodged there, the queen went to London and met the 
Parliament. And the Bishop of Hereford, who was the most 
skilful of her friends, said. What was to be done now ? Here 
was an, imbecile, indolent, miserable king upon the throne! 
wouldn't it be better to take him off, and put his son there in- 
stead ? I don't know whether the queen really pitied him at 
this pass, but she began to cry j so the bishop said, " Well, my 
lords and gentlemen, what do you think, upon the whole, of 
sending down to Kenilworth, and seeing if His Majesty (God 
bless him, and forbid we should depose him !) won't resign ? " 

My lords and gentlemen thought it a good notion ; so a 
deputation of them went down to Kenilworth, and there the 
king came into the great hall of the castle, commonly dressed 
in a poor black gown ; and, when he saw a certain bishop among 
them, fell down, poor feeble-headed man, and made a wretched 
spectacle of himself. Somebody lifted him up ; and then 
Sir William Trussel, the Speaker of the House of Commons, 
almost frightened him to death by making him a tremendous 
speech, to the effect that he was no longer a king, and that 
everybody renounced allegiance to him. After which. Sir 
Thomas Blount, the steward of the household, nearly finished 
him, by coming forward and breaking his white wand, which 
was a ceremony only performed at a king's death. Being asked 
in this pressing manner what he thought of resigning, the king 
said he thought it was the best thing he could do. So he did 
it, and they proclaimed his son next day. 

I wish I could close this history by saying, that he lived a 
harmless life in the castle and the castle-gardens at Kenilworth, 
many years \ that he had a favorite, and plenty to eat and drink ; 
and, having that, wanted nothing. But he was shamefully 
humiliated. He was outraged and slighted, and had dirty 
water from ditches given him to shave with, and wept, and said 
he would have clean warm water, and was altogether very mis- 
erable. He was moved from this castle to that castle, and 
from that castle to the other castle, because this lord, or that 



MNGLAIVB UNDER EBWARD THE THIRB 141 

lord, or the other lord, was too kind to him ; until at last he 
came to Berkeley Castle, near the River Severn, where (the 
Lord Berkeley being then ill and absent) he fell into the hands 
of two black ruffians, called Thomas Gournay and William 
Ogle. 

One night, — it was the night of September 21, 1327, — dread- 
ful screams were heard by the startled people in the neighbor- 
ing town, ringing through the thick walls of the castle, and 
the dark deep night ; and they said, as they were thus horribly 
awakened from their sleep, " May Heaven be merciful to the 
king ; for those cries forbode that no good is being done to him 
in his dismal prison!" Next morning he was dead, — not 
^luised, or stabbed, or marked upon the body, but much dis- 
torted in the face ; and it was whispered afterwards, that those 
two villains, Gournay and Ogle, had burnt up his inside with a 
red-hot iron. 

If you ever come near Gloucester, and see the centre tower 
of its beautiful cathedral, with its four rich pinnacles rising 
lightly in the air, you may remember that the wretched Edward 
the Second was buried in the old abbey of that ancient city, at 
forty-three years old, after being for nineteen years and a half 
a perfectly incapable king. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. 

Roger Mortimer, the queen's lover (who escaped to France 
in the last chapter), was far from profiting by the examples he 
had had of the fate of favorites. Having, through the queen's 
influence, come into possession of the estates of the two De- 
spensers, he became extremely proud and ambitious, and sought 
to be the real ruler of England. The young king, who was 
crowned at fourteen years -tjf age with all the usual solemnities, 
resolved not to bear this, and soon pursued Mortimer to his 
ruin. 

The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer, — first, 
because he was a royal favorite ; secondly, because he was sup- 
posed to have helped to make a peace with Scotland which now 



X42 A CrrrLD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

took place, and in virtue of which the young king's sister Joaii^ 
only seven years old, was promised in marriage to David, the son 
and heir of Robert Bruce, who was only five years old. The 
nobles hated Mortimer because of his pride, riches, and power. 
They went so far as to take up arms against him ; but were 
obliged to submit. The Earl of Kent, one of those who did so, 
but who aftervv^ards went over to Mortimer and the queen, was 
made an example of in the following cruel manner. 

He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl ; and 
he was persuaded by the agents of the favorite and the queen, 
that poor King Edward the Second was not really dead ; and 
thus was betrayed into writing letters favoring his rightful claim 
to the throne. This was made out to be high treason ; and he 
was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be executed. They 
took the poor old lord outside the town ot Winchester, and 
there kept him waiting some three or four hours, until they 
could find somebody to cut off his head. At last, a convict 
said he would do it, if the government would pardon him in 
return j and they gave him the pardon, and, at one blow, he 
put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense. 

While the queen was in France, she had found a lovely and 
good young lady named Philippa, who she thought would 
make an excellent wife for her son. The young king married 
this lady, soon after he came to the throne.; and her first 
child, Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards became celebrated, 
as we shall presently see, under the famous title of Edward 
the Black Prince. 

The young king, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of 
Mortimer, took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should pro- 
ceed. A parliament was going to be held at Nottingham ; and 
that lord recommended that the favorite should be seized by 
night in Nottingham Castle, where he was sure to be. Now this, 
like many other things, was more easily said than clone ; because, 
to guard against treachery, the great gates of the castle were 
locked every night, and the great keys were carried up stairs to 
the queen, who laid them under her own pillow. But the castle 
had a governor ; and the governor, being Lord Montacute's 
friend, coniided to him how he knew of a secret passage under 
ground, hidden from observation by the weeds and brambles 
with which it was overgrown ; and how through that passage 
the conspirators might enter in the dead of the night, and go 
straight to Mortimer's room. Accordingly, upon a certain 
dark night at midnight, they made their way through this dis- 
mal place, startling the rats, and frightening the owls and bats ; 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. 



U3 



and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the castl«> 
where the kin^r met them, and took them up a profoundly dark 
staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voice of 
Mortimer in council, with some friends ; and bursting into the 
room with a sudden noise, took him prisoner. The queen 
cried out from her bedchamber, " O, my sweet son, my dear 
son, spare my gentle Mortimer ! " They carried him ofT, how- 
ever; and, before the next parliament, accused him of having 
made differences between the young king and his mother, and 
of having brought about the death of the Earl of Kent, and 
even of the late king ; for, as you know by this time, when 
they wanted to get rid of a man in those old days, they were 
not very particular of what they accused him. Mortimer waa 
found guilty of all this, and was sentenced to be hanged at 
Tyburn. The king shut his mother up in genteel confinement, 
where she passed the rest of her life ; and now he became king 
in earnest. 

The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The 
English lords who had lands in Scotland, finding that their 
rights were not respected under the late peace, made war on 
their own account ; choosing for their general, Edward, the son 
of John Baliol, who made such a vigorous fight, that in let* 
than two months he won the whole Scottish kingdom. He was 
joined, when thus triumphant, by the king and parliament \ and 
he and the king in person besieged the Scottish forces in Ber- 
wick. The whole Scottish army coming to the assistance of 
their countrymen, such a furious battle ensued, that thirty 
thousand men are said to have been killed in it. Baliol was 
then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage to the King of 
England ; but little came of his successes after all \ for the 
Scottish men rose against him, within no very long time, and 
David Bruce came back within ten years and took his kingdom. 

France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the king 
had a much greater mind to conquer it. So he let Scotland 
alone, and pretended that he had a claim to the French throne 
in right of his mother. He had, in reality, no claim at all \ but 
that mattered little in those times. He brought over to his 
cause many little princes and sovereigns, and even courted the 
alliance of the people of Flanders, — a busy, working com- 
munity, who had very small respect for kings, and whose head 
man was a brewer. With such forces as he raised by these 
means, Edward invaded France ; but he did little by that, ex- 
cept run into debt in carrying on the war to the extent of three 
hundred thousand pounds. The next year he did better, gaii> 



i44 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ing a great sea-fight in the harbor of Sluys. This success, how 
ever, was very short-Hved ; for the Flemings took fright at the 
siege of St. Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and 
baggage behind them. Philip, the French king, coming up 
with his army, and Edward being very anxious to decide the 
war, proposed to settle the difference by single combat with 
him, or by a fight of one hundred knights on each side. The 
French king said he thanked him ; but, being very well as he 
was, he would rather not. So, after some skirmishing and 
talking, a short peace was made. 

It was soon broken by King Edward's favoring the cause 
of John, Earl of Montford, a French nobleman, who asserted a 
claim of his own against the French king, and offered to do 
homage to England for. the crown of France, if he could obtain 
it through England's help. This French lord himself was soon 
defeated by the French king's son, and shut up in a tower in 
Paris , but his wife, a courageous and beautiful woman, who is 
said to have had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion, 
'Assembled the people of Brittany where she then was, and, 
showing them her infant son, made many pathetic entreaties 
to them not to desert her and their young lord. They took 
fire at this appeal, and rallied round her in the strong Castle 
of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged without by 
the French, under Charles de Blois, but was endangered within 
by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the 
people what horrors they must undergo if they were faithful, — 
first from famine, and afterwards from fire and sword. But 
this noble lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her 
soldiers by her own example ; went from post to post like a 
great general ; even mounted on horseback fully armed, and, 
issuing from the castle by a by-path, fell upon the French camp, 
set fire to the tents, and threw the whole force into disorder. 
This done, she got safely back to Hennebon again, and was 
received with loud shouts of joy by the defenders of the castle, 
who had given her up for lost. As they were now very short 
of provisions, however, and as they could not dine off enthu- 
siasm, and as the old bishop was always saying, " I told you 
what it would come to ! " they began to lose heart, and to talk 
of yielding the castle up. The brave countess retiring to an 
upper room, and looking with great grief out to sea, where she 
expected relief from England, saw, at this very time, the Eng- 
lish ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued ! Sii 
Walter Manning, the English commander, so admired her 
courage, that, being come into the castle with the English 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. j^^ 

knights, and having made a feast there, he assaulted the French 
by way of dessert, and beat them off triumphantly. Then he 
and the knights came back to the castle with great joy ; and 
the countess, who had watched them from a high tower, 
thanked them with all her heart, and kissed them every one. 

This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea- 
fight with the French off Guernsey, when she was on her way 
to England to ask for more troops. Her great spirit roused 
another lady, the wife of another French lord (whom the 
French king very barbarously murdered), to distinguish her- 
self scarcely less. The time was fast coming, however, when 
Edward, Prince of Wales, was to be the great star of this 
French and English war. 

It was in the month of July, 1346, when the king embarked 
at Southampton for France, with an army of about thirty thou- 
sand men in all, attended by the Prince of Wales and by sev- 
eral of the chief nobles. He landed at La Hogue in Normandy \ 
and, burning and destroying as he went, according to custom, 
advanced up the left bank of the River Seine, and fired the 
small towns, even close to Paris ; but, being watched from the 
right bank of the river by the French king and all his army, it 
came to this at last, that Edward found himself, on Saturday, 
the 26th of August, 1346, on a rising ground, behind the little 
French' village of Crecy, face to face with the French king's 
force. And although the French king had an enormous army, 
— in number more than eight times his, — he there resolved to 
beat him or be beaten. 

The young prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the 
Earl of Warwick, led the first division of the English army; 
two other great earls led the second ; and the king the third. 
When the morning dawned, the king received the sacrament 
and heard prayers, and then, mounted on horseback with a 
white wand in his hand, rode from company to company, and 
rank to rank, cheering and encouraging both officers and men. 
Then the whole army breakfasted, each man sitting on the 
ground where he had stood ; and then they remained quietly 
on the ground with their weapons ready. 

Up came the French king with all his great force. It was 
dark and angry weather , there was an eclipse of the sun ; 
there was a thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain ^ 
the frightened birds flew screaming above the soldiers' heads. 
A certain captain in the French army advised the French king, 
who was by no means cheerful, not to begin the battle until the 
morrow. The king, taking this advice, gave the word to halt 



\' 



^46 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

But those behind not understanding it, or desiring to be fore 
most with the rest, came pressing on. The roads for a great 
distance were covered with this immense army, and with the 
common people from the villages, who were flourishing theii 
rude weapons, and making a great noise. Owing to these cir- 
cumstances, the French army advanced in the greatest confu- 
sion ; every French lord doing what he liked with his own men, 
and putting out the men of every other French lord. 

Now the king relied strongly upon a great body of cross- 
bowmen from Genoa ; and these he ordered to the front to be* 
gin the battle on finding that he could not stop it. They 
shouted once, they shouted twice, they shouted three times, to 
alarm the English archers j but the English would have heard 
them shout three thousand times and would have never moved. 
At last the cross-bowmen went forward a little, and began to 
discharge their bolts ; upon which the English let fly such a 
hail of arrows that the Genoese speedily made off ; for their 
ross-bows, besides being heavy to carry, required to be wound 
p with a handle, and consequently took time to re-load ; the 
nglish, on the other hand, could discharge their arrows almost 
fast as the arrows could fly. 

When the French king saw the Genoese turning, he cried 
sjdt to his men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm 
instead of service. This increased the confusion. Meanwhile 
the English archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot 
down great numbers of the French soldiers and knights ; whom 
certain sly Cornish-men and Welshmen, from the English army, 
creeping along the ground, despatched with great knives. 

The prince and his division were at this time so hard- 
pressed, that the Earl of Warwick sent a message to the king, 
who was overlooking the battle from a windmill, beseeching 
him ^ send more aid. 

" Is my son killed ? " said the king. 

" No, sire, please God ! " returned the messenger 

" Is he wounded ? " said the king. 

" No, sire." 

*^ Is he thrown to the ground ? " said the king. 

** No, sire, not so ; but he is very hard-pressed." 

** Then," said the king, " go back to those who sent you, 
and tell them I shall send no aid ; because I set my heart upon 
my son proving himself this day a brave knight, and because 1 
am resolved, please God, that the honor of a victory shall be 
his." 

These bold words, being repeated to the prince and his 



BN-GLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. ,4^ 

dmi>ion, so raised their spirits that they fought better than ever. 
The King of France charged gallantly with his men many times ; 
but it was of no use. Night closing in, his horse was killed 
under him by an English arrow, and the knights and nobles, 
who had clustered thick about him early in the day, were now 
completely scattered. At last, some of his few remaining follow- 
ers led him off the field by force, since he would not retire ot 
himself; and they journeyed away to Amiens. The victorious 
English, lighting their watch fires, made merry on the field \ 
and the king, riding to meet his gallant son, took him in his 
arms, kissed him, and told him that he had acted nobly, and 
proved himself worthy of the day and of the crown. While it 
was yet night. King Edward was hardly aware of the victory 
he had gained ; but next day it was discovered that eleven 
princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common 
men lay dead upon the French side. Among these was the King 
of Bohemia, an old blind man \ who having been told that his 
son was wounded in the battle, and that no force could stand 
against the Black Prince, called to him two knights, put him- 
self on horseback between them, fastened the three bridles to- 
gether, and dashed in among the English where he was pres- 
ently slain. He bore as his crest three white ostrich feathers, 
with the motto, Ich dien, signifying, in English, " I serve." This 
crest and motto were taken by the Prince of Wales in remem- 
brance of that famous day, and have been borne by the Prince 
of Wales ever since. 

Five days after this great battle, the king laid siege tO 
Calais. This siege — ever afterwards memorable — lasted nearly 
a year. In order to starve the inhabitants out. King Edward 
built so many wooden houses for_the lodgings of his troops, 
that it is said their quarters looked like a second Calais sud- 
denly sprung up around the first. Early in the siege, the gover- 
nor of the town drove out what he called the useless mouths, 
to the number of seventeen hundred persons, men and women, 
young and old. King Edward allowed them to pass through 
his lines, and even fed them, and dismissed them with money ; 
but later in the siege he was not so merciful, — ^five hundred 
more, who were afterwards driven out, dying of starvation and 
misery. The garrison were so hard-pressed at last, that they 
sent a letter to King Philip, telling him that they had eaten all 
the horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be 
found in the place ; and that, if he did not relieve them they 
must eidier surrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip 
made one effort to give them relief ; but they were so hemmed 
7 



54$ ^ CHILD'S HISTOR Y OF ENGLAND. 

in by iie English power, that he could not succeed, and wai 
fain to leave the place. Upon this they hoisted the English 
flag, and surrendered to King Edward. "Tell your general," 
said he to the humble messengers who came out of the town^ 
" that I require to have sent here six of the most distinguished 
citizens^ bare-legged and in their shirts, with ropes about theii 
necks ; and let those six men bring with them the keys of the 
castle and the town." 

When the governor of Calais related this to the people in 
the market-place, there was great weeping and distress, in the 
midst of which, one worthy citizen, named Eustache de Saint 
Pierre, rose up and said, that if the six men required were not 
sacrificed, the whole population would be, therefore he offered 
himself as the first. Encouraged by this bright example, five 
other worthy citizens rose up, one after another, and offered 
themselves to save the rest. The governor, who was too badly 
wounded to be able to ^valk, mounted a poor old horse that had 
not been eaten, and conducted these good men to the gate, 
while all the people cried and mourned. 

Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of 
the whole six to be struck off. However, the good queen fell 
upon her knees, and besought the king to give them up to her. 
The king replied, " I wish you had been somewhere else ; but 
I cannot refuse you." So she had them properly dressed, 
made a feast for them, and sent them back with a handsome 
present, to the great rejoicing of the whole camp. I hope the 
people of Calais loved the daughter to whom she gave birth 
soon afterwards, for her gentle mother's sake. 

Now came that terrible disease, the plague, into Europe, 
hurrying from the heart of China, and killed the wretched peo- 
ple — especially the poor — in such enormous numbers, that one 
half of the inhabitants of England are related to have died of 
it. It killed the cattle in great numbers too ; and so few work- 
ingmen remained alive, that there were not enough left to till 
the ground. 

After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of 
Wales again invaded France with an army of sixty thousand 
rnen , He went through the south of the country, burning and 
plundering wheresoever he went ; while his father, who had 
still the Scottish war upon his hands, did the like in Scotland, 
but was harassed and worried in his retreat from that country 
by the Scottish men, who repaid his cruelties with interest. 

The French king, Philip, was nov/ dead, and was succeeded 
by his son John. The Black Prince, called by that name from 



ENGLAN-D UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. 



J 4$ 



«ic color of the armor he wore to set off his fair complexion, 
continuing to burn and destroy in France, roused John into de- 
termined opposition ; and so cruel had the Black Prince been 
in his campaign, and so severely had the French peasants suf- 
fered, that he could not find one who, for love, or money, or 
the fear of death, would tell him what the French king was 
doing, or where he was. Thus it happened that he came upon 
the French king's forces, all of a sudden, near the town of Poic- 
tiers, and found that the whole neighboring country was occu- 
pied by a vast French army. " God help us ! " said the Black 
Prince ; " we must make the best of it." 

So on a Sunday morning, the i8th of September, the prince, 
whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all, pre- 
pared to give battle to the French king, who had sixty thousand 
horse alone. While he was so engaged, there came riding from 
the French camp a cardinal, who had persuaded John to let 
him offer terms, and try to save the shedding of Christian 
blood. " Save my honor," said the prince to this good priest, 
" and save the honor of my army, and I will make any reason- 
able terms." He offered to give up all the towns, castles, and 
prisoners he had taken, and to swear to make no war in France 
for seven years j but, as John would hear of nothing but to sur- 
render, with a hundred of his chief knights, the treaty was 
broken off, and the prince said quietly, " God defend the right ; 
we shall fight to-morrow ! " 

Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the 
two armies prepared for battle. The English were posted in a 
strong place, which could only be approached by one narrow 
lane, skirted by hedges on both sides. The French attacked 
them by this lane, but were so galled and slain by English ar- 
rows from behind the hedges, that they were forced to retreat. 
Then went six hundred English bowmen round about, and, 
coming upon the rear of the French army, rained arrows on 
them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown into confu- 
sion, quitted their banners, and dispersed in all directions. 
Said Sir John Chandos to the prince, " Ride forward, noble 
prince, and the day is yours. The King of France is so val- 
iant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and may be 
taken prisoner." Said the prince to this, " Advance, English 
banners, in the name of God and St. George ! " and on they 
pressed until they came up with the French king, fighting 
fiercely with his battle-axe, and when all his nobles had for- 
saken him, attended faithfully to the last by his youngest son 
Philip, only sixteen ye'ars of age. Father and son fought well i 



j^O ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and me King had already two wounds in his face, and had be^i 
beaten down, when he at last delivered himself to a banished 
French knight, and gave him his right-hand glove in token that 
he had done so. 

The Black Prince was generous as well as brave ; and he 
invited his royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon 
him at table, and, when they afterwards rode into London in a 
gorgeous procession, mounted the French king on a fine cream 
colored horse, and rode at his side on a little pony. This was 
all very kind ; but I think it was, perhaps, a little theatrical 
too, and has been made more meritorious than it deserved to 
be, especially as I am inclined to think that the greatest kind- 
ness to the King of France would have been not to have shown 
him to the people at all. However, it must be said for these 
acts of politeness, that in course of time, they did much to 
soften the horrors of war and the passions of conquerors. It was 
a long, long time before the common soldiers began to have 
the benefit of such courtly deeds, but they did at last ; and 
thus it is possible that a poor soldier who asked for quarter at 
the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great fight, may have 
owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black Prince. 

At this time, there stood in the strand in London, a palace 
called the Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of 
France and his son for their residence. As the king of Scot- 
land had now been King Edward's captive for eleven years too, 
his success was at this time tolerably complete. The Scottish 
business was settled by the prisoner being released under the 
title of Sir David, King of Scotland, and by his engaging to 
pay a large ransom. The state of France encouraged England 
to propose harder terms to that country, where the people rose 
against the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its nobles ; 
where the nobles rose in turn against the people ; where the 
most frightful outrages were committed on all sides ; and where 
the insurrection of the peasants, called.the insurrection of the 
Jacquerie, from Jacques, a common Christian name among the 
country people of France, awakened terrors and hatreds that 
have scarcely yet passed away. A treaty, called the Great 
Peace, was at last signed, under which King Edward agreed to 
give up the greater part of his conquests, and King John to 
pay, within six years, a ransom of three million crowns of gold. 
He was so beset by his own nobles and courtiers for having 
yielded to these conditions, — though they could help him to no 
better, — that he came back of his own will to his old palace- 
prison of the Savoy, and there died. 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD. .151 

There was a sovereign of Castile at that time, called Pedro 
the Cruel, who deserved the name remarkably well, having 
committed, among other cruelties, a variety of murders. This 
amiable monarch, being driven from his throne for his crimes, 
went to the province of Bordeaux, where the Black Prince— 
now married to his cousin Joan, a pretty widow, — was residing, 
and besought his help.^ The prince, who took to him much 
more kindly than a prince of such fame ought to have taken to 
such a ruffian, readily listened toTiis fair promises, and, agree- 
ing to help him, sent secret orders to some troublesome dis- 
banded soldiers of his and his father's who called themselves 
the Free Companions, and who had been a pest to the French 
people for some time, to aid this Pedro. The prince himself, 
going into Spain to head the army of relief, soon set Pedro on 
his throne again, — where he no sooner found himself, than, of 
course, he behaved like the villain he was, broke his word with- 
out the least shame, and abandoned all the promises he had 
made to the Black Prince. 

Now it had cost the prince a good deal of money to pay sol- 
diers to support this murderous king; and finding himself, 
when he came back disgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad 
health, but deeply in debt, he began to tax his French sub- 
jects to pay his creditors. They appealed to the French king, 
Charles j war again broke out ; and the French town of Limo- 
ges, which the prince had greatly benefited, went over to the 
French king. Upon this he ravaged the province of which it 
was the capital ; burnt and plundered and killed in the old sick- 
ening way j and refused mercy to the prisoners, men, women, 
and children, taken in the offending town, though he was so ill 
and so much in need of pity himself from Heaven that he was 
carried in a litter. He lived to come home, and make himself 
popular with the people and parliament, and he died on Trinity 
Sunday, the 8th of June, 1376, at forty-six years old. 

The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most re- 
nowned and beloved princes it had ever had j and he was 
buried with great lamentations in Canterbury Cathedral. Near 
to the tomb of Edward the Confessor, his monument, with his 
figure carved in stone, and represented in the old black armor, 
lying on its back, may be seen at this day, with an ancient coat 
of mail, a helmet, and a pair of gauntlets hanging from a beam 
above it, which most people like to believe were once worn by 
the Black Prince. 

King Edward did not outlive his renowned son long. He 
was old ; and one Alice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived 



1^2 A CHILirs HISTORY Vf^a^^LAITB. 

to make him so fond of her in his old age, that he could refuse 
her nothing, and made himself ridiculous. She little deserved 
his love, or — what I dare say she valued a great deal more — the 
jewels of the late queen, which he gave her among other rich 
presents. She took the very ring from his finger on the morn- 
ing of the day when he died, and left him to be pillaged by his 
faithless servants. Only one good priest was good to him, and 
attended him to the last. 

Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, 
the reign of King Edward the Third was rendered memorable 
in better ways, by the growth of architecture and the erection 
of Windsor Castle. In better ways still, by the rising up of 
Wyckliffe, originally a poor parish priest, who devoted himself 
to exposing, with wonderful power and success, the ambition 
and corruption of the pope, and of the whole church of which 
he was the head. 

Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England 
in this reign, too, and to settle in Norfolk, where they made 
better woollen cloths than the English had ever had before. 
The order of the Garter (a very fine thing in its way, but hardly 
so important as good clothes for the nation) also dates from 
this period. The king is said to have picked up a lady's garter 
at a ball, and to have said, Honi soit qui mal y pense ; in Eng- 
lish, " Evil be to him who evil thinks of it." The courtiers 
were usually glad to imitate what the king said or did, and 
hence from a slight incident the Order of the Garter was insti- 
tuted and became a great dignity. So the story goes. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOITO. 

Richard, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years o! 
age, succeeded to the crown, under the title of King Richard 
the Second. The whole English nation were ready to admire 
him for the sake of his brave father. As to the lords and ladies 
about the court, they declared him to be the most beautiful, the 
wisest, and the best, even of princes, whom the lords and ladies 
about the court generally declare to be the most beautiful, the 
wisest^ and best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND. 



^l 



base manner was not a very likely way to develop whatever 
good was in him, and it brought him to anything but a good or 
happy end. 

The Duke of Lancaster, the young king's uncle, commonly 
called John of Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which 
the common people so pronounced, — was supposed to have 
some thoughts of the throne himself ; but as he was not popu- 
lar, and the memory of the Black Prince was, he submitted to 
his nephew. 

The war with France being still unsettled, the government 
of England wanted money to provide for the expenses that 
might arise out of itv accordingly a certain tax, called the poll- 
tax, which had originated in the last reign, was ordered to be 
levied on the people. This was a tax on every person in the 
kingdom, male and female, above the age of fourteen, of three 
groats (or three fourpenny pieces) a year; clergymen were 
charged more, and only beggars were exem.pt. 

I have no need to repeat that the common people of Eng- 
land had long been suffering under great oppression. They 
were still the mere slaves of the lords of the land on which they 
lived, and were on most occasions harshly and unjustly treated. 
But they had begun by this time to think very seriously of not 
bearing quite so much, and probably were emboldened by that 
French insurrection I mentioned in the last chapter. 

The people of Essex rose against the poll-tax, and, being 
severely handled by the government officers, killed some of 
them. At this very time some one of the tax-collectors going his 
rounds from house to house, at Dartford, in Kent, came to the 
cottage of one Wat, a tiler by trade, and claimed the tax upon 
his daughter. Her mother, who was at home, declared that 
she was under the age of fourteen, upon that, the collector (as 
other collectors had already done in different parts of England) 
behaved in a savage way, and brutally insulted Wat Tyler's 
daughter. The daughter screamed, the mother screamed. 
Wat, the Tiler, who was at work not far off, ran to the spot, and 
did what any honest father under such provocation might have 
done, — struck the collector dead at a blow. 

Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They 
made Wat Tyler their leader ; they joined with the people of 
Essex, who were in arms under a priest called Jack Straw ; 
they took out of prison another priest named John Ball 3 and, 
gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced in a great 
confused army of poor men, to Blackheath. It is said that they 
wanted to abolish all property, and to declare all men equal. I 



t54 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

do not think this very likely ; because they stopped the travel* 
lers on the road and made them swear to be true to King 
Richard and the people. Nor were they at all disposed to in- 
jure those who had done them no harm, merely because they 
were of high station ; for the king's mother, who had to pass 
through their camp at Blackheath, on her way to her young son, 
lying for safety in the Tower of London, had merely to kiss a 
few dirty-faced, rough-bearded men who were noisily fond of 
royalty, and so got away in perfect safety. Next day the whole 
mass marched on to London Bridge, 

There was a drawbridge in the middle, which William Wal. 
worth, the mayor, caused to be raised to prevent their coming- 
into the city ; but they soon terrified the citizens into lowering 
it again, and spread themselves with great uproar, over the 
streets. They broke open the prisons ; they burned the papers 
in Lambeth Palace ; they destroyed the Duke of Lancaster's 
palace, the Savoy, in the Strand, said to be the most beautiful 
and splendid in England ; they set fire to the books and docu- 
ments in the Temple, and made a great riot. Many of these 
outrages were committed in drunkenness, since those citizens, 
who had well-filled cellars, were only too glad to throw them 
open to save the rest of their property, but even the drunken 
rioters were very careful to steal nothing. They were so angry 
with one man, who was seen to take a silver cup at the Savoy 
palace, and put it in his breast, that they drowned him in the. 
river, cup and all. 

The young king had been taken out to treat with them be^ 
fore they committed these excesses, but he and the peopla 
about him were so frightened by the riotous shouts, that they 
got back to the Tower in the best way they could. This made> 
the insurgents bolder ; so they went on rioting away, striking 
off the heads of those who did not, at a moment's notice, de- 
clare for King Richard and the people, and killing as many of 
the unpopular persons whom they supposed to be their enemies, 
as they could by any means lay hold of. In this manner they 
passed one very violent day, and then proclamation was mado 
that the king would meet them at Mile-End, and grant their re* 
quest. 

The rioters went to Mile-End, to the number of sixty thou- 
sand, and the king met them there ; and to the king the rioters 
peaceably proposed four conditions. First, that neither they, 
nor their children, nor any coming after them, should be made 
slaves any more. Secondly, that the rent of land should be 
fixed at a certain price in money, instead of being paid in seir 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND, 



15s 



vice. Thirdly, that they should have liberty to buy and sell in 
all markets and public places, like other free men. Fourthly, 
that they should be pardoned for past offences. Heaven knows 
there was nothing very unreasonable in these proposals ! The 
young king deceitfully pretended to think so, and kept thirty 
clerks up all night writing out a charter accordingly. 

Now Wat Tyler himself wanted more than this. He wanted 
the entire abolition of the forest laws. He was not at Mile-End 
with the rest ; but, while that meeting was being held, broke 
into the Tower of London, and slew the archbishop and the 
treasurer, for whose heads the people had cried out loudly the 
day before. He and his men even thrust their swords into the 
bed of the Princess of Wales, while the Princess was in it, to 
make certain that none of their enemies were concealed there. 

So Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about 
the city. Next morning, the king with a small train of some 
sixty gentlemen — among whom was Walworth, the mayor — rode 
into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his people at a little distance. 
Says Wat to his men, " There is the king. I will go speak with 
him, and tell him what we want." 

Straightway, Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. 
"King," says Wat, " dost thou see all my men there ? " 

" Ah ! " says the king. " Why ? " 

"Because," says Wat, "they are all at my command, and 
have sworn to do whatever I bid them." 

Some declared afterwards, that, as Wat said this, he laid his 
hand on the king's bridle. Others declared that he was seen to 
play with his own dagger. I think, myself, that he just spoke 
to the king like a rough, angry man, as he was, and did nothing 
more. At any rate, he was expecting no attack, and preparing 
for no resistance, when Walworth, the mayor, did the not very 
valiant deed of drawing a short sword, and stabbing him in the 
throat. He dropped from his horse, and one of the king's 
people speedily finished him. So fell Wat Tyler. Fawners and 
flatterers made a mighty triumph of it, and set up a cry which 
will occasionally find an echo to this day. But Wat was a hard' 
working man, who had suffered much, and had been foully out- 
raged ; and it is probable that he was a man of much higher 
nature and a much braver spirit than any of the parasites who 
exulted then, or have exulted since, over his defeat. 

Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to 
avenge his fall. If the young king had not had presence of 
mind at that dangerous moment, both he and the mayor to boot 
might have followed Tyler pretty fast. But the king, riding up 



156 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLANB. . 

to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and that he would 
be their leader. They were so taken by surprise, that they set 
up a great shouting, and followed the boy until he was met at 
Islington by a large body of soldiers. 

The end of this rising was the then usual end. As soon as 
the king found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and un« 
did all he had done ; some fifteen hundred of the rioters were 
tried (mostly in Essex) with great rigor, and executed with great 
cruelty. Many of them were hanged on gibbets, and left there 
as a terror to the country people ; and, because their miserable 
friends took some of the bodies down to bury, the king ordered 
the rest to be chained up, — which was the beginning of the bar- 
barous custom of hanging in chains. The king's falsehood in 
this business makes such a pitiful figure, that I think Wat Tyler 
appears in history as beyond comparison the truer and more 
respectable man of the two. 

Richard was now sixteen years of age, and married Anne of 
Bohemia, an excellent princess, who was called " the good Queen 
Anne " She deserved a better husband ; for the king had been 
fawned and flattered into a treacherous, wasteful, dissolute, bad 
young man. 

There were two popes at this time (as if one were not enough !) 
and their quarrels involved Europe in a great deal of trouble. 
Scotland was still troublesome too; and at home there was 
much jealousy and distrust, and plotting and counter-plotting, 
because the king feared the ambition of his relations, and par- 
ticularly of his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster ; and the duke had 
his party against the king, and the king had his party against 
the duke. Nor were these home troubles lessened when the 
duke went to Castile to urge his claim to the crown of that 
kingdom ; for then the Duke of Gloucester, another of Richard's 
uncles, opposed him, and influenced the Parliament to demand 
the dismissal of the king's favorite ministers. The king said, 
in reply, that he would not for such men dismiss the meanest 
servant in his kitchen. But it had begun to signify little what 
a king said when a parliament was determined ; so Richard was 
at last obliged to give way, and to agree to another government 
of the kingdom, under a commission of fourteen nobles, for a 
year. His uncle of Gloucester was at the head of this com- 
mission, and, in fact, appointed everybody composing it. 

Having done all this, the king declared, as soon as he saw 
an opportunity, that he had never meant to do it, and that it was 
all illegal 3 and he got the judges secretly to sign a declaration 
to that effect. The secret oozed out directly, and was €arried 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND, 



157 



to the Duke of Gloucester. The Duke of Gloucester, at the 
head of forty thousand men, met the king on his entering into 
London to enforce his authority ; the king was helpless against 
him ; his favorites and ministers were impeached and were 
mercilessly executed. Among them were two men whom the 
people regarded with very different feelings, — one, Robert 
Tresilian, Chief Justice who was hated for having made what 
was called " the bloody circuit " to try the rioters ; the other, 
Sir Simon Burley, an honorable knight, who had been the dear 
friend of the Black Prince, and the governor and guardian of 
the king. For this gentleman's life the good queen even begged 
of Gloucester on her knees ; but Gloucester (with or without 
reason) feared and hated him, and replied, that if she valued her 
husband's crown, she had better beg no more. All this was 
done under what was called by some the wonderful — and by 
others, with better reason, the merciless — parliament. 

But Gloucester's power was not to last forever. He held it 
for only a year longer ; in which year the famous battle of 
Otterbourne, sung in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, was fought, 
When the year was out, the king, turning suddenly to Glouces- 
ter, in the midst of a great council, said, " Uncle, how old am 
I ? " *' Your Highness," returned the duke, " is in your twenty- 
second year." " Am I so much ? " said the king ; " then I will 
manage my own affairs ! I am much obliged to you, my good 
lords, for your past services, but I need them no more." He 
followed this up by appointing a new chancellor and a new 
treasurer, and announced to the people that he had resumed the 
government. He held it for eight years without opposition. 
Through all that time, he kept his determination to revenge him- 
self some day upon his uncle Gloucester in his own breast. 

At last tlie good queen died ; and then the king, desiring to 
take a second wife, proposed to his council that he should marry 
Isabella of France, the daughter of Charles the Sixth, who, the 
French courtiers said (as the English courtiers had said of 
Richard) was a. marvel of beauty and wit, and quite a phe- 
nomenon, — of seven years old. The council was divided about 
this marriage, but it took place. It secured peace between 
England and France for a quarter of a century ; but it was 
strongly opposed to the prejudices of the English people. The 
Duke of Gloucester, who was anxious to take the occasion of 
making himself popular, declaimed against it loudly ; and this 
at length decided the king to execute the vengeance he had been 
nursing so long. 

He went with a gay company to the Duke of Gloucester*! 



1^8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

house, Pleshey Castle, in Essex, where the duke, suspecting 
nothing, came out into the court-yard to receive his royal visitor. 
While the king conversed in a friendly manner with the duch- 
ess, the duke was quietly seized, hurried away; shipped foi 
Calais, and lodged in the castle there. His friends, the Earls 
of Arundel and Warwick, were taken in the same treacherous 
manner, and confined to their castles. A few days after, at 
Nottingham, they were impeached for high treason. The E^rl 
of Arundel was condemned and beheaded, and the Earl of War- 
wick was banished. Then a writ was sent by a messenger to 
the Governor of Calais, requiring him to send the Duke of 
Gloucester over to be tried. In three days, he returned an an- 
swer that he could not do that, because the Duke of Gloucester 
had died in prison. The duke was declared a traitor, his prop- 
erty was confiscated to the king, a real or pretended confession 
he had made in prison to one of the justices of the common 
pleas was produced against him, and there was an end of the 
matter. How the unfortunate duke died very few cared to 
know. Whether he really died naturally, whether he killed him- 
self, whether by the king's order he was strangled, or smothered 
between two beds (as a serving-man of the governor's, named 
Hall, did afterwards declare), cannot be discovered. There is 
not much doubt that he was killed, somehow or other, by his 
nephew's orders. Among the most active nobles in these pro- 
ceedings were the king's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, whom the 
king had made Duke of Hereford to smooth down the old 
family quarrels, and some others ; who had in the family plot- 
ting-times done just such acts themselves as they now con- 
demned in the duke. They seem to have been a corrupt set of 
men ; but such men were easily found about the court in such 
days. 

The people murmured at all this, and were still very sore 
about the French marriage. The nobles saw how little the king 
cared for law, and how crafty he was, and began to be some- 
what afraid of themselves. The king's life was a life of con- 
tinued feasting and excess ; his retinue, down to the meanest 
servants, were dressed in the most costly manner, and caroused 
at his tables, it is related, to the number of ten thousand every 
day. He himself, surrounded by a body of ten thousand arch- 
ers, and enriched by a duty on wool, which the Commons had 
granted him for life, saw no danger of ever being otherwise than 
powerful and absolute, and was as fierce and haughty as a king 
could be. 

He had two of his old enemies left, in the persons of the 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND. 159 

Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. Sparing these no more than 
the others, he tampered with the Duke of Hereford until he got 
him to declare, before the Council, that the Duke of Norfolk 
had lately held some treasonable talk with him as he was riding 
near Brentford ; and that he had told him, among other things, 
that he could not believe the king's oath, — which nobody could, 
I should think. For this treachery he obtained a pardon, and the 
Duke of Norfolk was summoned to appear and defend himself. 
As he denied the charge, and said his accuser was a liar and a 
traitor, both noblemen, according to the manner of those times 
were held in custody, and the truth was ordered to be decided 
by wager of battle at Coventry This wager of battle meant that 
whosoever won the combat was to be considered in the right : 
which nonsense meant, in effect, that no strong man could ever 
be wrong. A great holiday was made , a great crowd assem- 
bled, with much parade and show ; and the two combatants 
were about to rush at each other with their lances, when the 
king, sitting in a pavilion to see fair, threw down the truncheon 
he carried in his hand, and forbade the battle. The Duke of 
Hereford was to be banished for ten years, and the Duke of 
Norfolk was to be banished for life. So said the king. The 
Duke of Hereford went to France, and went no farther. The 
Duke of Norfolk made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and 
afterwards died at Venice of a broken heart. 

Faster and fiercer, after this, the king went on in his career. 
The Duke of Lancaster, who was the father of the Duke of 
Hereford, died soon after the departure of his son \ and the 
king, although he had solemnly granted to that son leave to 
inherit his father's property, if it should come to him during 
his banishment, immediately seized it all, like a robber. The 
judges were so afraid of him that they disgraced themselves by 
declaring this theft to be just and lawful. His avarice knew 
no bounds. He outlawed seventeen counties at once, on a 
frivolous pretence, merely to raise money by way of fines for 
misconduct. In short, he did as many dishonest things as he 
could ; and cared so little for the discontent of his subjects, — ■ 
though even the spaniel favorites began to whisper to him that 
there was such a thing as discontent afloat, — that he took that 
time, of all others, for leaving England, and making an expedi- 
tion against the Irish. 

He was scarcely gone, leaving the Duke of York regent in 
his absence, when his cousin, Henry of Hereford, came over 
from France to claim the rights of which he had been so mon- 
strously deprived. He was immediately joined by the two 



l6o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

great earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland ^ and hia 
uncle, the regent, finding the king'c cause unpopular, and the 
disinclination of the army to act against Henry very strong, 
withdrew the royal forces towards Bristol. Henry, at the head 
of an army, came from Yorkshire (where he had landed) to 
London, and followed him. They joined their forces — how they 
brought that about is not distinctly understood — ant' proceeded 
to Bristol Castle, whither three noblemen had taken the young 
queen. The castle surrendering, they presently put those three 
noblemen to death. The regent then remained there, and Henry 
went on to Chester. 

All this time the boisterous weather had prevented the king 
from receiving intelligence of what had occurred A^ length it 
was conveyed to him in Ireland ; and he sent over the Earl of 
Salisbury, v/ho, landing at Conway, rallied the Welshmen, and 
waited for the king a whole fortnight ; at the end of that time 
the Welshmen, who were perhaps not very warm for him in the 
beginning, quite cooled down, and went home. When the king 
did land on the coast at last, he came with a pretty good power ; 
but his men cared nothing for him, and quickly deserted- Sup- 
posing the Welshmen to be still at Conway, he disguised him- 
self as a priest, and made for that place in company with his 
two brothers and some few of their adherents. But there were 
no Welshmen left, — only Salisbury and a hundred soldiers. In 
this distress, the king's two brothers, Exeter and Surrey, offered 
to go to Henry to learn what his intentions were. Surrey, who 
was true to Richard, was put into prison. Exeter, who was 
false, took the royal badge, which was a hart, off his shield, and 
assumed the rose, the badge of Henry. After this it was pretty 
plain to the king what Henry's intentions were, without sending 
any more messengers to ask- 

The fallen king, thus deserted, hemmed in on all sides and 
pressed with hunger, rode here and rode there, and went to 
this castle and went to that castle, endeavoring to obtain some 
provisions, but could find none. He rode wretchedly back to 
Conway, and there surrendered himself to the Earl of North- 
umberland, who came from Henry, in reality to take hirn 
prisoner, but in appearance to offer terms, and whose men were 
hidden not far off. By this earl he was conducted to the 
Castle of Flint, where his cousin Henry met him, and dropped 
on his knee as if he were still respectful to his sovereign. 

" Fair cousin of Lancaster," said the king, "you are very 
welcome " (very welcome, no doubt ; but he would have beea 
more s^ in chains, or without a head). 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND igj 

** My lord," replied Henry, " I am come a little before my 
time ; but, with your good pleasure, I will show you the reasoa 
Your people complain, with some bitterness, that you have 
ruled them rigorously for two-and-twenty years. Now, if it 
pleases God, I will help you to govern them better in future." 

" Fair cousin," replied the abject king, " since it pleaseth 
you, it pleaseth me mightily." 

After this, the trumpet sounded, and the king was stuck on 
A wretched horse, and carried prisoner to Chester, where he 
was made to issue a proclamation calling a parliament. From 
Chester he was taken on towards London. At Lichfield he 
tried to escape by getting out of a window, and letting himself 
down into a garden j it was all in vain, however ; and he was 
carried on and shut up in the Tower, where no one pitied him, 
and where the whole people, whose patience he had quite tired 
out, reproached him without mercy. Before he got there, it is 
related that his very dog left him, and departed from his side 
to lick the hand of Henry. 

The day before the Parliament met, a deputation went to 
this wretched king, and told him that he had promised the 
Earl of Northumberland at Conway Castle to resign the crown. 
He said he was quite ready to do it, and signed a paper in 
which he renounced his authority, and absolved his people 
from their allegiance to him. He had so little spirit left, that 
he gave his royal ring to his triumphant cousin Henry with his 
own hand, and said, that if he could have had leave to appoint 
a successor, that same Henry was the man of all others whom 
he would have named. Next day the Parliament assembled 
in Westminster Hall, where Henry sat at the side of the throne, 
which was empty, and covered with a cloth of gold. The paper 
just signed by the king was read to the multitude amid shouts 
of joy, which were echoed through all the streets ; when some 
of the noise had died away, the king was formally deposed. 
Then Henry arose, and, making the sign of the cross on his 
forehead and breast, challenged the realm of England as his 
right j the Archbishops of Canterbury and York seated him on 
the throne. 

The multitude shouted again, and the shouts re-echoed 
throughout all the streets. No one remembered now that 
Richard the Second had ever been the most beautiful, the 
wisest, and the best of princes ; and he now made living (to 
my thinking) a far more sorry spectacle in the Tower of Lon- 
don, than Wat Tyler had made, lying dead among the hoofs of 
the royal horses in Smithfield. 



J §2 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The poll-tax died with Wat. The smiths to the k'.ng and 
royal family could make no chains in which the king coulo 
hang the people's recollection of him \ so the poll-tax was «evc - 
collected. 



CHAPTER XX. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, CALLED BOLINGBROKE, 

During the last reign, the preaching of Wyckliffe against 
the pride and cunning of the pope and all his men, had made 
a great noise in England. Whether the new king wished to be 
in favor with the priests, or whether he hoped, by pretending 
to be very religious, to cheat Heaven itself into the belief that 
he was not a usurper, I don't know. Both suppositions are 
likely enough. It is certain that he began his reign by making 
a strong show against the followers of Wyckliffe, who were 
called Lollards, or heretics, — although his father, John of 
Gaunt, had been of that way of thinking, as he himself had 
been more than suspected of being. It is no less certain that 
he first established in England the detestable and atrocious 
custom, brought from abroad, of burning those people as a 
punishment for their opinions. It was the importation into 
England of one of the practices of what was called the Holy 
Inquisition ; which was the most ?/«holy and the most infamous 
tribunal that ever disgraced mankind, and made men more like 
demons than followers of our Saviour. 

No real right to the crown, as you know, was in this king. 
Edward Mortimer, the young Earl of March, — who was only 
eight or nine years old, and who was descended from the Duke 
of Clarence, the elder brother of Henry's father, — was by suc- 
cession the real heir to the throne. However, the king got his 
son declared Prince of Wales ; and, obtaining possession of the 
young Earl of March and his little brother, kept them in con- 
Cnement (but not severely) in Windsor Castle. He then re- 
quired the Parliament to decide what was to be done with the 
deposed king, who was quiet enough, and who only said that 
he hoped his cousin Henry would be "a good lord " to him. 
The Parliament replied that they would recommend his being 
kept in some secret place, where the people could not resort^ 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH. 163 

(ind where his friends could be admitted to see him. Henry 
accordingly passed this sentence upon him ; and it now began 
to be pretty clear to the nation that Richard the Second would 
not live very long. 

It was a noisy parliament, as it was an unprincipled one ; 
and the lords quarrelled so violently among themselves as to 
which of them had been loyal and which disloyal, and which 
consistent and which inconsistent, that forty gauntlets are said 
to have been thrown upon the floor at one time as challenges 
to as many battles ; the truth being, that they were all false 
and base together, and had been at one time with the old king, 
and at another time with the new one, and seldom true for any 
length of time to any one. They soon began to plot again. A 
conspiracy was formed to invite the king to a tournament at Ox- 
ford, and then to take him by surprise and kill him. This 
murderous enterprise, which was agreed upon at secret meet- 
ings in the house of the Abbot of Westminster, was betrayed by 
the Earl of Rutland, one of the conspirators. The king, instead 
of going to the tournament, or staying at Windsor (where the 
conspirators suddenly went, on finding themselves discovered, 
with the hope of seizing him), retired to London, proclaimed 
them all traitors, and advanced upon them with a great force. 
They retired into the west of England, proclaiming Richard 
king ; but the people rose against them, and they were all slain. 
Their treason hastened the death of the deposed monarch. 
Whether he was killed by hired assassins, or whether he was 
starved to death, or whether he refused food on hearing of his 
brothers being killed (who were in that plot), is very doubtful. 
He met his death somehow ; and his body was publicly shown 
at St. Paul's Cathedral with only the lower part of the face un- 
covered. I can scarcely doubt that he was killed by the king's 
orders. 

The French wife of the miserable Richard was now only 
ten years old ; and when her father, Charles of France, heard 
of her misfortunes and of her lonely condition in England, he 
went mad, as he had several times done before during the last 
five or six years. The French Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon 
took up the poor girl's cause, without caring much about it, but 
on the chance of getting something out of England. The 
people of Bordeaux, who had a sort of superstitious attachment 
to the memory of Richard, because he was born there, swore 
by the Lord that he had been the best man in all his kingdom, 
—which was going rather far, — and promised to do great things 
against the English. Nevertheless, when they came to considet 



164 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

that they and the whole people of France were ruined by theii 
own nobles, and that the English rule was much the better of 
the two, they cooled down again ; and the two dukes, although 
they were very great men, could do nothing without them. 
Then began negotiations between France and England for the 
sending home to Paris of the poor little queen, with all her 
jewels, and her fortune of two hundred thousand francs in gold 
The king was quite willing to restore the young lady, and even 
the jewels j but he said he really could not part with the money. 
So at last she was safely deposited at Paris without her fortune \ 
and then the Duke of Burgundy (who was cousin to the French 
king) began to quarrel with the Duke of Orleans (who was 
brother to the French king) about the whole matter ; and those 
two dukes made France even more wretched than ever. 

As the idea of conquering Scotland was still popular at home, 
the king marched to the River Tyne, and demanded homage 
of the king of that country. This being refused, he advanced 
to Edinburgh, but did little there ; for his army being in want 
of provisions, and the Scotch being very careful to hold him in 
check without giving battle, he was obliged to retire. It is to 
his immortal honor, that in this sally he burnt no villages and 
slaughtered no people, but was.particularly careful that his army 
should be merciful and harmless. It was a great example in 
those ruthless times. 

A war among the Border people of England and Scotland 
went on for twelve months ; and then the Earl of Northumber- 
land, the nobleman who had helped Henry to the crown, began 
to rebel against him, probably because nothing that Henry could 
do for him would satisfy his extravagant expectations. There 
was a certain Welsh gentleman, named Owen Glendower, who 
had been a student in one of the inns of court, and had after- 
wards been in the service of the late king, whose Welsh property 
was taken from him by a powerful lord related to the present 
king, who was his neighbor. Appealing for redress, and getting 
none, he took up arms, was made an outlaw, and declared him- 
self sovereign of Wales. He pretended to be a magician ; and 
not only were the Welsh people stupid enough to believe him, 
but even Henry believed him too ; for, making three expeditions 
into Wales, and being three times driven back by the wildness 
of the country, the bad weather, and the skill of Glendower, he 
thought he was defeated by the Welshman's magic arts. How- 
ever, he took Lord Grey and Sir Edmund Mortimer prisoners, 
and allowed the relatives of Lord Grey to ransom him, but 
would not extend such favor to Sir Edmund Mortimer. Now, 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FOURTH, 1^5 

Henry Percy, called Hotspur, son of the Earl of Northumber- 
land, who was married to Mortimer's sister, is supposed to have 
taken offence at. this ; and therefore, in conjunction with his 
father and some others, to have joined Owen Glendower, and 
risen against Henry. It is by no means clear that this was the 
real cause of the conspiracy ; but perhaps it was made the pre- 
text. It was formed, and was very powerful ; including Scroop, 
Archbishop of York, and the Earl of Douglas, a powerful and 
brave Scottish nobleman. The king was prompt and active, 
and the two armies met at Shrewsbury. 

There were about fourteen thousand men in each. The old 
Earl of Northumberland being sick, the rebel forces were led 
by his son. The king wore plain armor to deceive the enemy ; 
and four noblemen, with the same object, wore the royal arms. 
The rebel charge was so furious, that every one of those gentle- 
men was killed, the royal standard was beaten down, and the 
young Prince of Wales was severely wounded in the face. But 
he was one of the bravest and best soldiers that ever lived ; 
and he fought so well, and the king's troops were so encouraged 
by his bold example, that they rallied immediately, and cut the 
enemy's forces all to pieces. Hotspur was killed by an arrow 
in the brain ; and the rout was so complete, that the whole re- 
bellion was struck down by this one blow. The Earl of North- 
umberland surrendered himself soon after hearing of the death 
of his son, and received a pardon for all his offences. 

There were some lingerings of rebellion yet ; Owen Glen- 
dower being retired to Wales, and a preposterous story being 
spread among the ignorant people that King Richard was still 
alive. How they could have believed such nonsense it is dif- 
ficult to imagine ; but they certainly did suppose that the court 
fool of the late king, who was something like him, was he him- 
self ; so that it seemed as if, after giving so much trouble to 
the country in his life, he was still to trouble it after his death. 
This was not the worst. The young Earl of March and his 
brother were stolen out of Windsor Castle. Being retaken, 
and being found to have been spirited away by one Lady 
Spencer, she accused her own brother, that Earl of Rutland 
who was in the former conspiracy and was now Duke of York, 
of being in the plot. For this he was ruined in fortune, though 
not put to death ; and then another plot arose among the old 
Earl of Northumberland, some other lords, and that same 
Scroop, Archbishop of York, who was with the rebels before. 
These conspirators caused a writing to be posted on the church- 
doors, accusing the king of a variety of crimes \ but the king 



l66 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAJSTD. 

being eager and vigilant to oppose them, they were all taken, 
and the archbishop was executed. This was the first time that 
a great churchman had been slain by the law in England ; hut 
the king was resolved that it should be done, and done it was. 

The next most remarkable event of this time was the 
seizure by Henry of the heir to the Scottish throne, — James, a 
boy of nine years old. He had been put aboard ship by his 
father, the Scottish King Robert, to save him from the designs 
of his uncle, when, on his way to France, he was accidentally 
taken by some English cruisers. He remained a prisoner in 
England for nineteen years, and became in his prison a student 
and a famous poet. 

With the exception of occasional troubles with the Welsh 
and with the French, the rest of King Henry's reign was quiet 
enough. But the king was far from happy, and probably was 
troubled in his conscience by knowing that he had usurped the 
crown, and had occasioned the death of his miserable cousin. 
The Prince of Wales, though brave and generous, is said to 
have been wild and dissipated, and even to have drawn his 
sword on Gascoigne, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 
because he was firm in dealing impartially with one of his disso- 
lute companions. Upon this the chief justice is said to have 
ordered him immediately to prison ; the Prince of Wales is said 
to have submitted with a good grace ; and the king is said to 
have exclaimed, "Happy is the monarch who has so just a 
judge, and a son so willing to obey the laws." This is all very 
doubtful , and so is another story (of which Shakespeare has 
made beautiful use), that the prince once took the crown out of 
his father's chamber as he was sleeping, and tried it on his own 
head. 

The king's health sank more and more, and he became sub- 
ject to violent eruptions on the face, and to bad epileptic fits, 
and his spirits sank every day. At last, as he was praying be- 
fore the shrine of St.. Edward, at Westminster Abbey, he was 
seized with a terrible fit, and was carried into the abbot's 
chamber, where he presently died. It had been foretold that 
he would die at Jerusalem, which certainly is not, and never 
was, Westminster. But as the abbot's, room had long been 
called the Jerusalem Chamber, people said it was all the same 
thing, and were quite satisfied with the prediction. 

The king died on the 20th of March, 1413, in the forty- 
seventh year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He 
was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. He had been twice 
married, and had, by his first wife, a family of four sons and 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FirTH 167 

two daughters. Considering his duplicity before he came t(? 
the throne, his unjust seizure of it, and, above all, his making 
that monstrous law for the burning of what the priests called 
heretics, he was a reasonably good king, as kings went 



CHAPTER XXI. 

england under henry the fifth 

First Part. 

The Prince of Wales began his reign like a generous and 
honest man. He set the young Earl of March free ; he re- 
stored their estates and their honors to the Percy family, who 
had lost them by their rebellion against his father ; he ordered 
the imbecile and unfortunate Richard to be honorably buried 
among the kings of England ; and he dismissed all his wild 
companions, with assurances that they should not want, if they 
would resolve to be steady, faithful, and true. 

It is much easier to burn men than to burn their opinions ; 
and those of the Lollards were spreading every day. The 
Lollards were represented by the priests — probably falsely fol 
the most part — to entertain treasonable designs against the 
new king ; and Henry, suffering himself to be worked upon by 
these representations, sacrificed his friend Sir John Oldcastle, 
the Lord Cobham, to them, after trying in vain to convert him 
by arguments. He was declared guilty, as the head of the 
sect, and sentenced to the flames ; but he escaped from the 
Tower before the day ot execution (postponed for fifty days by 
the king himself), and summoned the Lollards to meet him neai 
London on a certain day. So the priests t6ld the king, at least. 
I doubt whether there was any conspiracy beyond such as was 
got up by their agents. On the day appointed, instead of five- 
and-twenty thousand men, under the command of Sir John Old- 
castle, in the meadows of St, Giles, the king found only eighty 
--^n, and no Sir John at all. There was in another place an 
addle-headed brewer, who had gold trappings to his horses, and 
a pair of gilt spurs in his breast, expecting to be made a knight 
next day by Sir John, and so to gain the right to wear them ,• 
Nwt there was no Sir John, nor did anybody give information 



1 68 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF EN'GLAN'D. 

respecting him, though the king offered great rewards for such 
Intelligence. Thirty of these unfortunate Lollards were hanged 
and drawn immediately, and were then burnt, gallows and all ; 
and the various prisons in and around London were crammed 
full of others. Some of these unfortunate men made various 
confessions of treasonable designs ; but such confessions were 
easily got, under torture and the fear of fire, and are very little 
to be trusted. To finish the sad story of Sir John Oldcastle at 
once, I may mention that he escaped into Wales, and remained 
there safely for four years. When discovered by Lord Powis, 
it is very doubtful if he would have been taken alive, — so great 
was the old soldier's bravery, — if a miserable old ^Voman had 
not come behind him, and broken his legs with a stool. He 
was carried to London in a horse-litter, was fastened by an iron 
chain to a gibbet, and so roasted to death. 

To make the state of France as plain as I can in a few 
words, I should tell you that the Duke of Orleans and the Duke 
of Burgundy, commonly, called "John without fear," had had a 
grand reconciliation of their quarrel in the last reign, and had 
appeared to be quite in a heavenly state of mind. Immediately 
after which, on a Sunday, in the public streets of Paris, the 
Duke of Orleans was murdered by a party of twenty men, set 
on by the Duke of Burgundy, according to his own deliberate 
confession. The widow of King Richard had been married in 
France to the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans. The poor 
mad king was quite powerless to help her ; and the Duke of 
Burgundy became the real master of France. Isabella dying, 
her husband (Duke of Orleans, since the death of his father) 
married the daughter of the Count of Armagnac, who, being a 
much abler man than his young son-in-law, headed his party ; 
thence called after him Armagnacs. Thus France was now in 
this terrible condition, that it had in it the party of the king's 
son, the Dauphin Louis ; the party of the Duke of Burgundy, 
who was the father of the dauphin's ill-used wife ; and the party 
of the Armagnacs, — all hating each other, all fighting together, 
all composed of the most depraved nobles that the earth has 
ever known, and all tearing unhappy France to pieces. 

The late king had watched these dissensions from England, 
sensible (like the French people) that no enemy of France could 
injure her more than her own nobility. The present king now 
advanced a claim to the French throne. His demand being, of 
course, refused, he reduced his proposal to a certain large 
amount of French territory, and to demanding the French 
Princess Catherine in marriage, with a fortune of two millions 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH. 169 

of golden crowns. He was offered less territory, and fewer 
crowns, and no princess ; but he called his ambassadors home, 
and prepared for war. Then he proposed to take the princess 
with one million of crowns. The French court replied that he 
should have the princess with two hundred thousand crowns 
less ; he said this would not do (he had never seen the princess 
in his life), and assembled his army at Southampton. There 
was a short plot at home, just at that time, for deposing him, 
and making the Earl of March king ; but the conspirators were 
all speedily condemned and executed, and the king embarked 
for France. 

It is dreadful to observe how long a bad example will be 
followed j but it is encouraging to know that a good example is 
never thrown away. The king's first act, on disembarking at 
the mouth of the river Seine, three miles from Harfleur, was to 
imitate his father, and to proclaim his solemn orders that the 
lives and property of the peaceable inhabitants should be re- 
spected on pain of death. It is agreed by French writers, to his 
lasting renown, that even while his soldiers were suffering the 
greatest distress for want of food, these commands were rigidly 
obeyed. 

With an army in all of thirty thousand men, he besieged the 
town of Harfleur both by sea and land for five weeks ; at the 
end of which time the town surrendered, and the inhabitants 
were allowed to depart with only fivepence each, and a part of 
their clothes. All the rest of their possessions was divided 
amongst the English army. But that army suffered so much, 
in spite of its successes, from disease and privation, that it was 
already reduced one half. Still, the king was determined not 
to retire until he had struck a greater blow. Therefore, against 
the advice of all his counsellors, he moved on with his little 
force towards Calais. When he came up to the river Somme 
he was unable to cross, in consequence of the fort being forti- 
fied j and, as the English moved up the left bank of the river 
looking for -a crossing, the French, who had broken all the 
bridges, moved up the right bank, watching them, and waiting 
to attack them when they should try to pass it. At last the 
English found a crossing, and got safely over. The French 
held a council of war at Rouen, resolved to give the English 
\)attle, and sent heralds to King Henry to know by which roa(^ 
Jie was going. " By the road that will take me straight to 
Calais ! " said the king, and sent them away with a present o^ 
a hundred crowns. 

The English moved on until they beheld the French, and 



1^0 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

then the king gave orders to form in line of battle. The French 
iiot coming on, the army broke up, after lemaining in battle- 
^ array till night, and got good rest and refreshment at a neigh- 
boring village. The French were now all lying in another vil- 
lage, through which they knew the English must pass. They 
were resolved that the English should begin the battle. The 
English had no means of retreat, if their king had any such in- 
tention : and so the two armies passed the night close to- 
gether. 

To understand these armies well, you must bear in mind that 
the immense French army had, among its notable persons, al- 
most the whole of that wicked nobility whose debauchery had 
made France a desert ; and so besotted were they by pride, and 
by contempt for the common people, that they had scarcely any 
bowmen (if indeed they had any at all) in their whole enormous 
number, which, compared with the English army, was at least 
as six to one ; for these proud fools had said that the bow was 
not a fit weapon for knightly hands, and that France must be 
defended by gentlemen only. We shall see presently what 
hand the gentlemen made of it. 

Now, on the English side, among the little force, there was 
a good proportion of men who were not gentlemen, by any 
means, but who were good stout archers for all that. Among 
them, in the morning, — having slept little at night, while the 
French were carousing and making sure of victory, — the king 
rode, on a gray horse; wearing on his head a helmet of 
shining steel, surmounted by a crown of gold, sparkling with 
precious stones ; and bearing over his armor, embroidered to- 
gether, the arms of England and the arms of France. The 
archers looked at the shining helmet, and the crown of gold, 
and the sparkling jewels, and admired them all ; but what they 
admired most was the king's cheerful face, and his bright blue 
eye, as he told them, that, for himself, he had made up his mind 
to conquer there or to die there, and that England should never 
have a ransom to pay for him There was one brave knight, 
who chanced to say that he wished some of the many gallant 
gentlemen and good soldiers, who were then idle at home in 
England, were there to increase their numbers. But the king 
^old him, that, for his part, he did not wish for one more man. 
•The fewer we have," said he, " the greater will be the hono! 
ft^e shall win ! " His men, being now all in good heart, were 
refreshed with bread and wine, and heard prayers, and waited 
quietly for the French. The king waited for the French, be- 
cause they were drawn up thirty deep (the little English force 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH, lyi 

was only three deep) on very difficult and heavy ground ; and 
he knew that when they moved, there must be confusion among 
them. - 

As they did not move he sent off two parties, — one to lie 
concealed in a wood on the left of the French, the other to set 
fire to some houses behind the French after the battle should 
be begun. This was scarcely done, when three of the proud 
French gentlemen, who were to defend their country without 
any help from the base peasants, came riding out, calling upon 
the English to surrender. The king warned those gentlemen 
himself to retire with all speed, if they cared for their lives, 
and ordered the English banners to advance. Upon that, Sir 
Thomas Erpingham, a great English general who commanded 
the archers, threw his truncheon into the air joyfully ; and all 
the Englishmen, kneeling down upon the ground, and biting it 
as if they took possession of the country, rose up with a great 
shout, and fell upon the French. 

Every archer was furnished with a great stake tipped with 
iron ; and his orders were, to thrust this stake into the ground, 
to discharge his arrow, and then to fall back when the French 
horsemen came on. As the haughty French gentlemen who 
were to break the English archers, and utterly destroy them with 
their knightly lances, came riding up, they were received with 
such a blinding storm of arrows that they broke and turned. 
Horses and men rolled over one another, and the confusion 
was terrific. Those who rallied, and charged the archers, got 
among the stakes on slippery and boggy ground, and were so 
bewildered that the English archers — who wore no armor, and 
even took off their leathern coats to be more active — cut them 
to pieces, root and branch. Only three French horsemen got 
within the stakes, and those were instantly despatched. All 
this time the dense French army, being in armor, were sinking 
knee-deep into the mire j while the light English archers, half 
naked, were as fresh and active as if they were fighting on a 
marble floor. 

But now the second division of the French, coming to the 
relief of the first, closed up in a firm mass ; the English, headed 
by the king, attacked them \ and the deadliest part of the bat- 
tle began. The king's brother, the Duke of Clarence, was 
struck down, and numbers of the French surrounded him ; but 
King Henry, standing over the body, fought like a lion until 
they were beaten off. Presently came up a band of eighteen 
French knights, bearing the banner of a certain French lord, 
who had sworn to kill or take the English king. One of thera 
8 



1^2 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

struck him such a blow with a battle-axe, that he reeled, and 
fell upon his knees ; but his faithful men, immediately closing 
round him, killed every one of those eighteen knights, and so 
that French lord never kept his oath. 

The French Duke of Alengon, seeing this, made a desperate 
charge, and cut his way close up to the royal standard of Eng- 
land. He beat down the Duke of York, who was standing 
near it ; and when the king came to his rescue, struck off a 
piece of the crown he wore. But he never struck another blow 
in this world ; for, even as he was in the act of saying who he 
was, and that he surrendered to the king, and even as the king 
stretched out his hand to give him a safe and honorable accept- 
ance of the offer, he fell dead, pierced by innumerable wounds. 

The death of this nobleman decided the battle. The third 
division of the French army, which had never struck a blow yet, 
and which was, in itself, more than double the whole English 
power, broke and fled. At this time of the fight, the English, 
who as yet had made no prisoners, began to take them in im- 
mense numbers, and were still occupied in doing so, or in kill- 
ing those who would not surrender, when a great noise arose 
in the rear of the French, — their flying banners were seen to 
stop, — and King Henry, supposing a great re-enforcement to 
have arrived, gave orders that all the prisoners should be put 
to death. As soon, however, as it was found that the noise was 
only occasioned by a body of plundering peasants, the terrible 
massacre was stopped. 

Then King Henry called to ,him the French herald, and 
asked him to whom the victory belonged. 

The herald replied, "To the King of England." 

" We have not made this havoc and slaughter," said the 
king. " It is the wrath of Heaven on the sins of France. 
What is the name of that castle yonder ? " 

The herald answered him, " My lord, it is the Castle of 
Azincourt." 

Said the king, " From henceforth this battle shall be known 
to posterity by the name of the battle of Azincourt." _ 

Our English historians have made it Agincourt ; but under 
that name it will ever be famous in English annals. 

The loss upon the French side was enormous. Three dukes 
were killed, two more were taken prisoners ; seven counts were 
killed, three more were taken prisoners ; and t-en thousand 
knights and gentlemen were slain upon the field. The Eng- 
lish loss amounted to sixteen hundred men, among whom were 
the Duke of York and the Earl of Suffolk. 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH, 173 

War is a dreadful thing ; and it is appalling to know how 
the English were obliged, next morning, to kill those prisoners, 
mortally wounded, who yet writhed in agony upon the ground : 
how the dead upon the French side were stripped by their own 
countrymen and countrywomen, and afterwards buried in great 
pits ; how the dead upon the English side were piled up in a 
great barn, and how their bodies and the barn were all burned 
together ! It is in such things, and in many more, much too 
horrible to relate, that the real desolation and wickedness of 
war consists. Nothing can make war otherwise than horrible. 
But the dark side of it was little thought of and soon forgotten ; 
and it cast no shade of trouble on the English people, except 
on those who had lost friends or relations in the fight. They 
welcomed their king home with shouts of rejoicing, and plunged 
into the water to bear him ashore on their shoulders, and 
flocked out in crowds to welcome him in every town through 
which he passed, and hung rich carpets and tapestries out of 
the windows, and strewed the streets with flowers, and made 
the fountains run with wine, as the great field of A^incourt had 
run with blood. 

Second Part. 

That proud and wicked French nobility who dragged their 
country to destruction, and who were every day sind every year 
regarded with deeper hatred and detestation in the hearts of 
the French people, learned nothing, even from the defeat of 
Agincourt. So far from uniting against the common enemy, 
they became, among themselves, more violent, more bloody, and 
more false — if that were possible — than they had been before. 
The Count of Armagnac persuaded the French king to plunder 
of her treasures Queen Isabella of Bavaria, and to make her a 
prisoner. She, who had hitherto been the bitter enemy of, the 
Duke of Burgundy, proposed to join him, in revenge. He car- 
ried her off to Troyes, where she proclaimed herself Regent of 
France, and made him her lieutenant. The Armagnac party 
were at that time possessed of Paris , but one of the gates of 
the city being secretly opened on a certain night to a party of 
the duke's men, they got into Paris, threw into the prisons all 
the Armagnacs upon whom they could lay their hands, and, a 
few nights afterwards, with the aid of a furious mob of sixty 
thousand people, broke the prisons open, and killed them all. 
The former dauphin was now dead, and the king's third son 
bore the title. Him, in the height of this murderous scene, a 



n4 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



French knight hurried out of bed, wrapped in a sheet, and bori 
away to Poictiers. So, when the revengeful Isabella and the 
Duke of Burgundy entered Paris in triumph after the slaughtei 
of their enemies, the dauphin was proclaimed at Poictiers as 
the real regent. 

King Henry had not been idle since his victory of Agin- 
court, but had repulsed a brave attempt of the French to recover 
Harfleur, had gradually conquered a great part of Normandy, 
and, at this crisis of affairs, took the important town of Rouen, 
after a siege of half a year. This great loss so alarmed the French, 
that the Duke of Burgundy proposed that a meeting to treat 
of peace should be held between the French and the English 
kings in a plain by the river Seine. On the appointed day, 
King Henry appeared there, tvith his two brothers, Clarence 
and Gloucester, and a thousand men. The unfortunate French 
king, being more mad than usual that day, could not come ; 
but the queen came, and with her the Princess Catherine, who 
was a very lovely creature, and who made a real impression on 
King Henry, now that he saw her for the first time. This was 
the most important circumstance that arose out of the meeting. 

As if it were impossible for a French nobleman of that time 
to be true to his word of honor in anything, Henry discovered 
that the Duke of Burgundy was, at that very moment, in secret 
treaty with the dauphin , and he therefore abandoned the 
negotiation. 

The Duke of Buigundy and the dauphin, each of who'm, 
with the best reason, distrusted the other as a noble ruffian sur- 
rounded by a party of noble ruffians, were rather at a loss how 
to proceed after this ; but at length they agreed to meet on a 
bridge over the liver Yonne, where it was arranged that there 
should be two strong gates put up, with an empty space between 
them, and that the Duke of Burgundy should come into that 
space by one gate, with ten men only, and that the dauphin 
should come into that space by the other gate, also with ten 
men, and no more. 

So far the dauphin kept his word : but no farther. When 
the Duke of Burgundy was on his knee before him in the act 
of speaking, one of the dauphin's noble ruffians cut the said 
duke down with a small axe, and others speedily finished him. 

It was in vain for the dauphin to pretend that this base 
murder was not done with his consent, it was too bad, even 
for France, and caused a general horror. The duke's heir 
hastened to make a treaty with King Henry, and the French 
queen engaged that her husband should consent to it, whatever 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE FIFTH. 175 

it was. Henry made peace, on condition of receiving the Prin 
cess Catherine in marriage, and being made Regent of France 
during the rest of the king's lifetnne, and succeedmg to the 
French crown at his death. He war soon married to the beau 
tiful princess, and took her proudly home to England, where 
she was crowned with great honor and glory. 

This peace was called the Perpetual Peace ; we shall soon 
see how long it lasted. It gave great satisfaction to the French 
people, although they were so poor and miserable, that, at the 
time of the celebration of the royal marriage, numbers of them 
were dying with starvation, on the dunghills in the streets of 
Paris. There was some resistance on the part of the dauphin 
in some few parts of France, but King Henry beat it all down. 

And now, with his great possessions in France secuied, and 
his beautiful wife to cheer him, and a son born to give him 
greater happiness, all appeared bright before him. But in the 
fulness of his triumph and the height of his power, death came 
upon him, and his day was done. When he fell ill at Vin- 
cennes, and found that he could not recover, he was very calm 
and quiet, and spoke serenely to those who wept around his 
bed. His wife and child, he said, he left to the loving care of 
his brother, the Duke of Bedford, and his other faithful nobles. 
He gave them his advice that England should establish a 
friendship with the new Duke of Burgundy, and offer him the 
regency of France ; that it should not set free the royal princes 
who had been taken at Agincourt ; and that, whatever quarrel 
might arise with France, England should never make peace 
without holding Normandy. Then he laid down his head, 
and asked the attendant priests to chant the penitential 
psalms. Amid which solemn sounds, on the 31st of August, 
1422, in only the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of 
his reign. King Henry the Fifth passed away. 

Slowly and mournfully they carried his embalmed body in a 
procession of great state to Paris, and thence to Rouen, where 
his queen was, from whom the sad intelligence of his death was 
concealed until he had been dead some days. Thence, lying 
on a bed of crimson and gold, with a golden crown upon the 
head, and a golden ball and sceptre lying in the nerveless 
hands, they carried it to Calais, with such a great retinue as 
seemed to dye the road black. The King of "Scotland acted 
as chief mourner, all the royal household followed, the knights 
wore black armor and black plumes of feathers ; crowds of 
men bore torches, making the night as light as day; and the 
widowed princess followed last of all. At Calais there was a 



176 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF FMGLAND. 

fleet of ships to bring the funeral host to Dover. And so, by 
way of London Bridge, where the service for the dead was 
chanted as it passed along, they brought the body to West' 
minster Abbey, and there buried it with great respect. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

england under henry the sixth. 

Part the First. 

It had been the wish of the late king, that while his infant 
■son, King Henry the Sixth, at this time only nine months old, 
was under age, the Duke of Gloucester should be appointed 
regent. The English Parliament, however, preferred to ap- 
point a council of regency, with the Duke of Bedford at its 
head ; to be represented, in his absence only, by the Duke of 
Gloucester. The Parliament would seem to have been wise in 
this ; for Gloucester soon showed himself to be ambitious and 
troublesome, and in the gratification of his own personal 
schemes, gave dangerous offence to the Duke of Burgundy, 
which was with difficulty adjusted. 

As that Duke declined the Regency of France, it was be- 
stowed by the poor French king upon the Duke of Bedford. 
But the French king dying within two months, the dauphin in- 
stantly asserted his claim to the French throne, and was ac- 
tually crowned under the title of Charles the Seventh. The 
Duke of Bedford, to be a match for him, entered into a friendly 
league with the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, and gave 
them his two sisters in marriage. War with France was im- 
mediately renewed, and the perpetual peace came to an un- 
timely end. 

In the first campaign, the English, aided by this alliance, 
were speedily successful. As Scotland, however, had sent the 
French five thousand men, and might send more, or attack the 
North of England while England was busy with France, it was 
considered that it would be a good thing to offer the Scottish 
King James, who had been so long imprisoned, his liberty, on 
his paying forty thousand pounds for his board and lodging 
during nineteen years, and engaging to forbid his subjects 
from serving under the flag of France. It is pleasant to know. 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH. 



77 



not only that the amiable captive at last regaififd his freedom 
upon these terms, but that he married a noblo English lady, 
with whom he had been long, in love, and becat^ie an excellent 
king. I am afraid we have met with some kings in this his- 
tory, and shall meet with some more, who would have been very 
much the better, and would have left the world much happier, 
if they had been imprisoned nineteen years too. 

In the second campaign, the English gained a considerable 
victory at Verneuil, in a battle which was chiefly remarkable, 
otherwise, for their resorting to the odd expedient of tying 
their baggage-horses together by the heads and tails, and jum- 
bling them up with the baggage, so as to convert them into a 
sort of live fortification, — which was found useful to the troops, 
but which I should think was not agreeable to the horses. For 
three years afterwards very little was done, owing to both sides 
being too poor for war, which is a very expensive entertain- 
ment ; but a council was then held in Paris, in which it was de- 
cided to lay siege to the town of Orleans, which was a place of 
great importance to the dauphin's cause. An English army of 
ten thousand men was despatched on this service, under the 
command of the Earl of Salisbury, a general of fame. He 
being unfortunately killed early in the siege, the Earl of Suffolk 
took his place ; under whom (re-enforced by Sir John Falstaff, 
who brought up four hundred wagons laden with salt herrings 
and other provisions for the troops, and, beating off the French, 
who tried to intercept him, came victorious out of a hot skir- 
mish, which was afterwards called in jest the Battle of the Her- 
rings) the town of Orleans was so completely hemmed in, that 
the besieged proposed to yield it up to their countrj^man, the 
Duke of Burgundy. The English general, however, replied 
that his Englishmen had won it, so far, by their blood and 
valor, and that his Englishmen must have it. There seemed to 
be no hope for the town, or for the dauphin, who was so dis- 
mayed that he even thought of flying to Scotland or to Spain, 
when a peasant-girl rose up, and changed the whole state of 
affairs. 

The story of this peasant-girl I have now to tell* 

Part the Second. 

THE STORY OF JOAN OF" ARC. 

In a remote village among some wild hills in the province 
of Lorraine, there lived a countryman v/hose name was Jacques 



178 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAN-D. 

d'Arc. He had a daughter, Joan of Arc, who was at this time 
in her twentieth year. She had been a solitary girl from her 
childhood ; she had often tended sheep and cattle for whole 
days where no human figure was seen or human voice heard ; 
and she had often knelt, for hours together, in the gloomy, 
empty little village chapel, looking up at the altar and at the 
dim lamp burning before it, until she fancied that she saw 
shadowy figures standing there, and even that she heard them 
speak to her. The people in that part of France were very 
ignorant and superstitious j and they had many ghostly tales 
to tell about what they had dreamed, and what they saw among 
the lonely hills when the clouds and the mists were resting on 
them. So they easily believed that Joan saw strange sights ; 
and they whispered among themselves that angels and spirits 
talked to her. 

At last, Joan told her father that she had one day been sur- 
prised by a great unearthly light, and had afterwards heard a 
solemn voice, which said it was St. Michael's voice, telling het 
that she w^as to go and help the dauphin. Soon after this 
(she said), St. Catherine and St. Margaret had appeared to hei 
with sparkling crowns upon their heads, and had encouraged 
her to be virtuous and resolute. These visions had returned 
sometimes, but the voices very often ; and the voices always 
said, " Joan, thou art appointed by Heaven to go and help the 
dauphin ! " She almost always heard them while the chapel- 
bells were ringing. 

There is no doubt, now, that Joan believed she saw and 
heard these things. It is very well known that such delusions 
are a disease which is not by any means uncommon. It is 
probable enough that there were figures of St. Michael and St 
Catherine and St. Margaret in the little chapel (where they 
would be very likely to have shining crowns upon their heads), 
and that they first gave Joan the idea of those three per^ 
sonages. She had long been a moping, fanciful girl ; and, 
though she was a very good girl, I daresay she was a little vain, 
and wishful for notoriety. 

Her father, something wiser than his neighbors, said, " I tell 
thee, Joan, it is thy fancy. Thou hadst better have a kind 
husband to take care of thee, girl, and work to employ thy 
mind ! " But Joan told him in reply, that she had taken a vow 
never to have a husband, and that she must go, as Heaven 
directed her, to help the dauphin. 

It happened, unfortunately for her father's persuasions, and 
most unfortunately for the poor girl too, that a party of the 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH. 



179 



dauphin's enemies found their way into the village, while Joan's 
disorder was at this point, and burnt the chapel, and drove out 
the inhabitants. The cruelties she saw committed, touched 
Joan's heart, and made her worse. She said that the voices 
and the figures were now continually with her ; that they told 
her she was the girl who, according to an old prophecy, was to 
deliver France, and she must go and help the dauphin, anc? 
must remain with him until he should be crowned at Rheims ; 
and that she must travel a long way to a certain lord, named 
Baudricourt, who could, and would, bring her into the dauphin's 
presence. 

As her father still said, " I tell thee, Joan, it is thy fancy," 
she set off to find out this lord, accompanied by an uncle, a 
poor village wheelwright and cart-maker, who believed in the 
reality of her visions. They travelled a long way, and went on 
and on, over a rough country, full of the Duke of Burgundy's 
men, and of all kinds of robbers and marauders, until they came 
to where this lord was. 

When his servants told him that there was a poor peasant- 
girl named Joan of Arc, accompanied by nobody but an old 
village wheelwright and cart-maker, who wished to see him, be- 
cause she was commanded to help the dauphin and save 
France, Baudricourt, burst out a laughing, and bade them send 
the girl away. But he soon heard so much about her lingering 
in the town, and praying in the churches, and seeing visions, 
and doing harm to no one, that he sent for her and questioned 
her. As she said the same things after she had been well 
sprinkled with holy water as she had said before the sprinkling, 
Baudricourt began to think there might be something in it. 
At all events, he thought it worth while to send her on to the 
town of Chinon, where the dauphin was. So he bought her a 
horse, and a sword, and gave her two squires to conduct her. 
As the voices had told Joan that she was to wear a man's dress, 
now she put one on, and girded her sword to her side, and 
bound spurs to her heels, and mounted her horse, and rode 
away with her two squires. As to her uncle, the wheelwright, 
he stood staring at his niece in wonder until she was out of 
sight, — as well he might, — and then went home again. The 
best place too. 

, Joan and her two squires rode on and on, until they came 
to Chinon, where she was, after some doubt, admitted into the 
dauphin's presence. Picking him out immediately from all his 
court, she told him that she came commanded by Heaven to 
subdue his enemies, and conduct him to his coronation a$ 



l8o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Rheims. She also told him (or he pretended so afterwards, to 
make the greater impression upon his soldiers) a number of his 
secrets known only to himself, and furthermore, she said there 
was an old, old sword in the Cathedral of St, Catherine at 
Fierbois, marked with five old crosses on the blade, which St. 
Catherine had ordered her to wear. 

Now nobody knew anything about this old, old sword ; but 
when the cathedral came to be examined, which was im- 
mediately done, there, sure enough, the sword was found! 
The dauphin then required a number of grave priests and 
bishops to give him their opinion whether the girl derived her 
power from good spirits or from evil spirits , which they held 
prodigiously long debates about, in the course of which several 
learned men fell fast asleep, and snored loudly. At last, when 
one gruff old gentleman had said to Joan, *' What language do 
your voices speak ! ' and when Joan had replied to the gruff 
old gentleman, " A pleasanter language than yours," they agreed 
thai it was all correct, and that Joan of Arc was inspired from 
Heaven This wonderful circumstance put new heart into the 
dauphin's soldiers when they heard ot it, and dispirited the 
English army, who took Joan for a witch. 

So Joan mounted horse again, and again rode on and on, 
until she came to Orleans. But she rode now as never peasant- 
girl had ridden yet. She rode upon a white war-horse, in a 
suit of glittering armor , with the old, old sword from the 
cathedral, newly burnished, in her belt ; with a white flag 
carried before her upon which were a picture of God, and the 
words Jesus Maria. In this splendid state, at the head of a 
great body of troops escorting provisions of all kinds for the 
starving inhabitants of Orleans, she appeared before that be- 
leaguered city. 

When the people on the walls beheld her, they cried out, 
" The Maid is come ! the Maid of the prophecy is come to de- 
liver us ! " And this, and the sight of the Maid fighting at the 
head of their men, made the French so bold, atid made the 
English so fearful, that the English line of forts was soon 
broken, the troops and provisions were got into the town, and 
Orleans was saved. 

Joan, henceforth called the Maid of Orleans, remained 
within the walls for a few days, and caused letters to be thrown 
over, ordering Lord Suffolk and his Englishmen to depart from 
before the town according to the will of Heaven As the. Eng- 
lish general very positively declined to believe that Joan knew 
anything about the will of Heaven (which did not mend the 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH \Zi 

matter with his soldiers ; for they stupidly said if she were not 
inspired she was a witch, and it was of no use to fight against a 
witch), she mounted her white war-horse again, and ordered 
her white banner to advance. 

The besiegers held the bridge, and some strong towers upon 
the bridge ; and here the Maid of Orleans attacked them. 
The fight was fourteen hours long. She planted a scaling- 
ladder with her own hands, and mounted a tower-wall, but was 
struck by an English arrow in the neck, and fell into the trench. 
She was carried away, and the arrow was taken out, during which 
operation she screamed and cried with the pain, as any other 
girl might have done ; but presently she said that the voices 
were speaking to her, and soothing her to rest. After a while 
she got up, and was again foremost in the fight. When the 
English, who had seen her fall and supposed her dead, saw 
this, they were troubled with the strangest fears; and some of 
them cried out that they beheld St. Michael on a white horse 
(probably Joan herself) fighting for the French. They lost the 
bridge, and lost the towers, and next day set their chain of forts 
on fire, and left the place, 

But as Lord Suffolk himself retired no farther than the 
town of Jargeau, which was only a few miles off, the Maid of 
Orleans besieged him there, and he was taken prisoner. As 
the white banner scaled the wall, she was struck upon the head 
with a stone, and was again tumbled down into the ditch ; but 
she only cried all the more, as she lay there, "On, on, my 
countrymen ! and fear nothing ; for the Lord hath delivered 
them into our hands ! " After this new success of the Maid's, 
several other fortresses and places which had previously held 
out against the dauphin were delivered up without a battle; 
and at Patay she defeated the remainder of the English army, 
and set up her victorious white banner on a field where twelve 
hundred Englishmen lay dead. 

She now urged the dauphin (who always kept out of the 
way when there was any fighting) to proceed to Rheims, as the 
first part of her mission was accomplished ; and to complete 
the whole by being crowned there. The dauphin was in no 
particular hurry to do this, as Rheims was a long way off, and 
the English and the Duke of Burgundy were still strong in the 
country through which the road lay. However, they set forth, 
with ten thousand men, and again the Maid of Orleans rode 
on and on, upon her white war-horse, and in her shining armor. 
Whenever they came to a town which yielded readily, the sol- 
diers believed in her ; but whenever they came to a town which 



iSt A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

gave them any trouble, they began to murmur that she was an 
impostor. The latter was particularly the case at Troyes, which 
finally yielded, however, through the persuasion of one Richard, 
a friar of the place. Friar Richard was in the old doubt about 
the Maid of Orleans, until he had sprinkled her well with the holy 
water, and had also well sprinkled the threshold of the gate by 
which she came into the city. Finding that it made no change 
in her or the gate, he said, as the other grave old gentlemen 
had said, that it was all right, and became her great ally. 

So at last, by dint of riding on and on, the Maid of Orleans, 
and the dauphin, and the ten thousand sometimes believing 
and sometimes unbelieving men, came to Rheims. And in the 
great Cathedral of Rheims the dauphin actually- was crowned 
Charles the Seventh in a great assembly of the people. Then 
the Maid, who, with her white banner, stood beside the king in 
that hour of his triumph, kneeled down upon the pavement at 
his feet, and said, with tears, that what she had been inspired 
to do was done, and that the only recompense she asked for was, 
that she should now have leave to go back to her distant home, 
and her sturdily incredulous father, and her first simple escort, 
the village wheelwright and cart-maker. But the king said, 
" No ! " and made her and her family as noble as a king could, 
and settled upon her the income of a count. 

Ah ! happy had it been for the Maid of Orleans, if she had 
resumed her rustic dress that day, and had gone home to the 
little chapel and the wild hills, and had forgotten all these 
things, and had been a good man's wife, and had heard no 
stranger voices than the voices of little children \ 

It was not to be ; and she continued helping the king (she 
did a world for him, in alliance with Friar Richard), and trying 
to improve the lives of the coarse soldiers, and leading a relig- 
ious, an unselfish, and a modest life herself, beyond any doubt. 
Still, many times she prayed the king to let her go home ; and 
once she even took off her bright armor, and hung it up in a 
church, meaning never to wear it more. But the king always 
won her back again, — while she was of any use to him ; and so 
she went on, and on, and on to her doom. 

When the Duke of Bedford, who was a very able man, be- 
gan to be active for England, and by bringing the war back into 
France, and by holding the Duke of Burgundy to his faith, to 
distress and disturb Charles very much, Charles sometimes 
asked the Maid of Orleans what the voices said about it ? 
But the voices had become (very like ordinary voices in per- 
plexed times) contradictory and confused, so that now they sai(i 



englan-d under henry the sixth. 183 

one thing, and now said another, and the Maid lost credit every 
day. Charles marched on Paris, which was opposed to him, 
and attacked the suburb of St. Honore. In this fight, being 
again struck down into the ditch, she was abandoned by the 
whole army. She lay unaided* among a heap of dead, and 
crawled out how she could. Then some of her believers went 
over to an opposition maid, Catherine of La Rochelle, who 
said she was inspired to tell where there were treasures of 
buried money, — though she never did; and then Joan acci- 
dentally broke the old, old sword, and others said that her 
power was broken with it. Finally, at the siege of Compiegne^ 
held by the Duke of Burgundy, where she did valiant service, 
she was basely left alone in a retreat, though facing about and 
fighting to the last j and an archer pulled her off her horse. 

the uproar that was made, and the thanksgivings that were 
sung, about the capture of this one poor country girl ! the way 
in which she was demanded to be tried for sorcery and heresy, 
and anything else you like, by the Inquisitor-General of France, 
and by this great man, and by that great man, until it is weari- 
some to think of ! She was bought at last by the Bishop of 
Beauvais for ten thousand francs, and was shut up in her narrow 
prison, — plain Joan of Arc again, and Maid of Orleans no more. 

1 should never have done if I were to tell you how they had 
Joan out to examine her, and cross-examine her, and re- 
examine her, and worry her into saying anything and every- 
thing ; and how all sorts of scholars and doctors bestowed 
their utmost tediousness upon her. Sixteen times she was 
brought out and shut up again, and worried and entrapped 
and argued with, until she was heart-sick of the dreary business. 
On the last occasion of this kind she was brought into a burial- 
place at Rouen, dismally decorated with a scaffold and a stake 
and fagots, and the executioner, and a pulpit with a friar therein, 
and an awful sermon ready. It is very affecting to know that 
even at that pass the poor girl honored the mean vermin of a 
king, who had so used her for his purposes and so abandoned 
her ; and that, while she had been regardless of reproaches 
heaped upon herself, she spoke out courageously for him. 

It was natural in one so young to hold to life. To save her 
life, she signed a declaration prepared for her, — signed it with 
a cross, for she couldn't write, — that all her visions and voices 
had come from the Devil. Upon her recanting the past, and 
protesting that she would never wear a man's dress in future, 
she was condemned to imprisonment for life, " on the bread of 
sorrow and the water of affliction." 



,^4 ^ CHILD'S HISTOR V OF ENGLAN'D. 

But on the bread of sorrow and the water of affliction, the 
visions and the voices soon returned. It was quite natural that 
they should do so ; for that kind of disease is much aggravated 
by fasting, lonehness, and anxiety of mind. It was not on!}? 
got out of Joan that she considered herself inspired again, but 
she was taken in a man's dress, which had been left — to entrap 
her — in her prison, and which she put on, in her solitude ; per- 
haps in remembrance of her past glories, perhaps because the 
imaginary voices told her. For this relapse into the sorcery 
and heresy and anything else you like, she was sentenced to be 
burnt to death. And in the market-place of Rouen, in the 
hideous dress which the monks had invented for such specta- 
cles, with priests and bishops sitting in a gallery looking on, — 
though some had the Christian grace to go away, unable to en- 
dure the infamous scene, — the shrieking girl, last seen amidst 
the smoke and fire holding a crucifix between her hands, last 
heard calling upon Christ, was burnt to ashes. They threw her 
ashes in the river Seine ; but they will rise against her mur- 
derers on the last day. 

From the moment of her capture, neither the French king 
nor one single man in all his court raised a finger to save her. 
It is no defence of them that they may have never really be- 
lieved in her, or that they may have won her victories by their 
skill and bravery. The more they pretended to believe in her, 
the more they had caused her to believe in herself ; and she 
had ever been true to them, ever brave, ever nobly devoted. 
But it is no wonder that they who were in all things false to 
themselves, false to one another, false to their country, false to 
Heaven, false to earth, should be monsters of ingratitude and 
treachery to a helpless peasant-girl. 

In the picturesque old town of Rouen, where weeds and 
grass grow high on the cathedral towers, and the venerable 
Norman streets are still warm in the blessed sunlight, though 
the monkish fires that once gleamed horribly upon them have 
long grown cold, there is a statue of Joan of Arc, in the scene 
of her last agony, the square to which she has given its present 
name. I know some statues of modern times— even in the 
world's metropolis, I think — which commemorate less con- 
stancy, less earnestness, smaller claims upon the world's atten- 
tion, and much greater impostors. 

Part the Third. 

Bad deeds seldom prosper, happily for mankind ; and the 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH. igj 

English cause gained no advantage from the cruel death of 
Joan of Arc. For a long time the war went heavily on. The 
Duke of Bedford died, the alliance with the Duke of Burgundy 
was broken, and Lord Talbot became a great general on the 
English side in France. But two of the consequences of wars 
are, faniine, because the people cannot peacefully cultivate the 
ground, and pestilence, which comes of want, misery and suf- 
fering. Both these horrors broke out in both countries, and lasted 
for two wretched years. Then the war went on again, and came 
by slow degrees to be so badly conducted by the English gov- 
ernment, that, within twenty years from the execution of the 
Maid of Orleans, of all the great French conquests, the town 
of Calais alone remained in English hands- 
While these victories and defeats were taking place in the 
course of time, many strange things happened at homCo The 
young king, as he grew up, proved to be very unlike his great 
father, and showed himself a miserable, puny creature. There 
was no harm in him. He had a great aversion lo shedding blood, 
which was something ; but he was a weak, silly, helpless young 
man, and a mere shuttlecock to the great lordly battledores 
about the court. 

Of these battledores, Cardinal Beaufort, a relation of the king, 
and the Duke of Gloucester, were at first the most powerful. 
The Duke of Gloucester had a wife who was nonsensically ac- 
cused of practising witchcraft to cause the king's death and 
lead to her husband's coming to the throne, he being the next 
heir. She was charged with having, by the help of a ridiculous 
woman named Margery (who was called a witch), made a little 
waxen doll in the king's likeness, and put it before a slow fire 
that it might gradually melt away. It was supposed, in such 
cases, that the death of the person whom the doll was made to 
represent was sure to happen. Whether the duchess was as 
ignorant as the rest of them, and really did make such a doli 
with such an intention, I don't know ; but you and I know very 
well that she might have made a thousand dolls, if she had been 
stupid enough, and might have melted. them all without hurting 
the king or anybody else. However, she was tried for it, and so 
was old Margery, and so was one of the duke's chaplains, who 
was charged with having assisted them. Both he and Margery 
were put to death ; and the duchess, after being taken on foot, 
and bearing a lighted candle three times round the city, as a 
penance, was imprisoned for life. The duke himself took all 
this pretty quietly, and made as little stir about the matter as 
if he were rather glad to be rid of the duchess. 



l86 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

But he was not destined to keep himself out of trouble long. 
The royal shuttlecock being three-and-twenty, the battledores 
were very anxious to get him married. The Duke of Gloucester 
wanted him to marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac ; 
but the cardinal and the Earl of Suffolk were all for Margaret, 
the daughter of the King of Sicily, who they knew was a res- 
olute, ambitious woman, and would govern the king as she 
chose. To make friends with this lady, the Earl of Suffolk, 
who went over to arrange the match, consented to accept hei 
for the kmg's wife without any fortune, and even to give up the 
two most valuable possessions England then had in France. 
So the marriage was arranged, on terms very advantageous to 
the lady ; and Lord Suffolk brought her to England, and she 
was married at Westminster. On what pretence this queen and 
her party charged the Duke of Gloucester with high treason 
within a couple of years, it is impossible to make out, the matter 
is so confused ; but they pretended that the king's life was in 
danger, and they took the duke prisoner. A fortnight after- 
wards, he was found dead in bed (they said); and his body 
was shown to the people, and Lord Suffolk came in for the best 
part ot his estates. You know by this time how strangely liable 
state prisoners were to sudden death. 

If Cardinal Beaufort had any hand in this matter, it did him 
no good 3 for he died within six weeks, thinking it very hard 
and curious — at eighty years old! — that he could not live to 
be pope. 

This was the time when England had completed her loss of 
all her great French conquests. The people charged the loss 
principally upon the Earl of Suffolk, now a duke, who had made 
those easy terms about the royal marriage, and who, they be- 
lieved, had even been bought by France. So he was impeached 
as a traitor, on a great number of charges, but chiefly on ac- 
cusations of having aided the French king, and of designing to 
make his own son king of England. The commons and the 
people being violent against him, the king was made (by his 
friends) to interpose to save him, by banishing him for five 
years, and proroguing the parliament. The duke had much 
ado to escape from a London mob, two thousand strong, who 
lay in wait for him in St. Giles's Fields j but he got down to 
his own estates in Suffolk, and .sailed away from Ipswich. 
Sailing across the Channel, he sent into Calais to know if he 
might land there ; but they kept his boat and men in the harbor, 
until an English ship, carrying a hundred and flfty men, and 
ealled " Nicholas of the Tower," came alongside his little vesself 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH 187 

und ordered him on board. " Welcome, traitor, as men say," was 
the captain's grim and not very respectful salutation. He was 
kept on board, a prisoner, for eight-and-forty hours, and then 
a small boat appeared rowing toward the ship. As this boat 
came nearer, it was seen to have in it a block, a rusty sword, and 
an executioner in a black mask. The duke was handed down into 
it, and there his head was cut off with six strokes of the rusty 
sword. Then the little boat rowed away to Dover Beach, where 
the body was cast out and left until the duchess claimed it. By 
whom, high in authority, this murder was committed, has never 
appeared, No one was ever punished for it. 

There now arose in Kent an Irishman who gave himself the 
name of Mortimer, but whose real name was Jack Cade. Jack, 
in imitation of Wat Tyler, though he was a very different and 
inferior sort of man, addressed the Kentish men upon their 
wrongs, occasioned by the bad government of England, among 
so many battledores and such a poor shuttlecock ; and the 
Kentish men rose up to the number of twenty thousand Their 
place of assembly was Blackheath, where, headed by Jack, they 
put forth two papers, which they called " The Complaint of 
the Commons of Kent," and " The Requests of the Captain 
of the Great Assembly in Kent." They then retired to Seven - 
oaks. The Royal army coming up with them here, they beat 
it, and killed their general. Then Jack dressed himself in the 
dead general's armor and led his men to London, 

Jack passed into the city from Southwark, over the bridge, 
and entered it in triumph, giving the strictest orders to his men 
not to plunder. Having made a show of his forces there while 
the citizens looked on quietly, he went back into Southwark in 
good order, and passed the night. Next day he came again, 
having got hold in the mean time of Lord Say, an unpopular 
nobleman. Says Jack to the lord mayor and judges, " Will you 
be so good as to make a tribunal in Guildhall, and try me this 
nobleman ? " The court being hastily made, he was found 
guilty ; and Jack and his men cut his head off on Cornhill. 
They also cut off the head of his son-in-law, and then went back 
in good order to Southwark again. 

But although the citizens could bear the beheading of an 
unpopular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pil- 
laged. And it did so happen, that Jack, after dinner, — per- 
haps he had drunk a little too much, — began to plunder the, 
house where he lodged ; upon which, of course, his men began 
to imitate him. Wherefore the Londoners took counsel with 
Lord Scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower . and 



l88 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

defended London Bridge, and kept Jack and his people out 
This advantage gained, it was resolved by divers great men to 
divide Jack's army in the old way by making a great many 
promises, on behalf of the state, that were never intended to be 
performed. This did divide them ; some of Jack's men saying 
that they ought to take the conditions which were offered, and 
others saying that they ought not, for they were only a snare , 
some going home at once; others staying where they were; 
and all doubting and quarrelling among themselves. 

Jack, who was in two minds about fighting or accepting a 
pardon, and who indeed did both, saw at last that there was 
nothing to expect from his men, and that it was very likely 
some of them would deliver him up, and get a reward of a 
thousand marks, which was offered for his apprehension. So 
after they had travelled and quarrelled all the way from South- 
wark to Blackheath, and from Blackheath to Rochester, he 
mounted a good horse, and galloped away into Sussex. But 
there galloped after him, on a better horse, one Alexander Iden, 
who came up with him, had a hard fight with him, and killed 
him. Jack's head was set aloft on London Bridge, with the 
face looking towards Blackheath, where he had raised his flag j 
and Alexander Iden got the thousand marks. 

It is supposed by some that the Duke of York, who had 
been removed from a high post abroad through the queen's in- 
fluence, and sent out of the way to govern Ireland, was at the 
bottom of this rising of Jack and his men, because he wanted 
to trouble the government. He claimed (though not yet pub- 
licly) to have a better right to the throne than Henry of Lan- 
caster, as one of the family of the Earl of March, whom Henry 
the Fourth had set aside. Touching this claim, which, being 
through female relationship, was not according to the usual 
descent, it is enough to say that Henry the Fourth was the 
free choice of the people and the parliament, and that his fam- 
ily had now reigned undisputed for sixty years. The memory 
of Henry the Fifth was so famous, and the English people loved 
it so much, that the Duke of York's claim would, perhaps, 
never have been thought of (it would have been so hopeless) but 
for the unfortunate circumstance of the present king's being by 
this time quite an idiot, and the country very ill -governed. 
These two circumstances gave the Duke of York a power he 
could not otherwise have had. 

Whether the duke knew anything of Jack Cade, or not, he 
came over from Ireland while Jack's head was on London 
Bridge j being secretly advised that the queen was setting up 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SfJTff. i8>l 

his enemy, the Duke of Somerset, against him. He went to 
Westminster at the head of four thousand men, and on his 
knees before the king, represented to him the bad state of the 
country, and petitioned him to summon a parliament to consider 
it. This the king promised. When the parliament was sum- 
moned, the Duke of York accused the Duke of Somerset, and 
the Duke of Somerset accused the Duke of York ; and, both 
in and out of parliament, the followers of each party were full 
of violence and hatred towards the other. At length, the Duke 
of York put himself- at the head of a large force of his tenants, 
and in arms, demanded the reformation of the government. 
Being shut out of London, he encamped at Dartford, and the 
royal army encamped at Blackheath. According as either side 
triumphed, the Duke of York was arrested, or the Duke of 
Somerset was arrested. The trouble ended, for the moment, in 
the Duke of York renewing his oath of allegiance, and going in 
peace to one of his own castles. 

Half a year afterwards the queen gave birth to a son, who 
was very ill received by the people, and not believed to be 
the son of the king. It shows the Duke of York to have been 
a moderate man, unwilling to involve England in new troubles, 
that he did not take advantage of the general discontent at this 
time, but really acted for the public good. He was made a mem- 
ber of the cabinet ; and the king being now so much worse that he 
could not be carried about and shown to the people with any dci 
cency, the duke was made Lord Protector of the kingdom, until 
the king should recover, or the prince should come of age. At 
the same time the Duke of Somerset was committed to the 
Tower. So now the Duke of Somerset was down, and the 
Duke of York was up. By the end of the year, however, the 
king recovered his memory and some spark of sense ; upon 
which the queen used her power, which recovered with him, to 
get the Protector disgraced, and her favorite released. So now 
the Duke of York was down, and the Duke of Somerset was up. 

These ducal ups and downs gradually separated the whole 
nation into the two parties of York and Lancaster, and led to 
those terrible civil wars long known as the Wars of the Red 
and White Roses, because the red rose was the badge of the 
House of Lancaster, and the white rose was the badge of the 
House of York. 

The Duke of York, joined by some other powerful noblemen 
of the White Rose party, and leading a small army, met the 
king with another small army at St. Alban's, and demanded thai 
the Duke of Somerset should be given up. The poor king, be 



,o A JHILD'S HISTOR V OF ENGLAND. 

ing made to say in answer that he would sooner die, was in 
stantly attacked. The Duke of Somerset was killed ; and the 
king himself was wounded in the neck, and took refuge in the 
house of a poor tanner. Whereupon the Duke of York went 
to him, led him with great submission to the abbey, and said 
he was very sorry for what had happened. Having now the 
king in his possession, he got a parliament summoned, and him 
self once more made Protector, but only for a few months ; 
for, on the king getting a little better again, the queen and her 
party got him into their possession, and disgraced the duke 
once more. So now the Duke of York was down again. 

Some of the best men in power, seeing the danger of these 
constant changes, tried even then to pt event the Red and the 
White Rose Wars. They brought about a great council in 
London between the two parties. The White Roses assembled 
in Blackfriars, the Red Roses in Whitefriars ; and some good 
priests communicated between them, and made the proceedings 
known at evening to the king and the judges. They ended in 
a peaceful agreement that there should be no more quarrelling ; 
and there was a great royal procession to St. Paul's, in which 
the queen walked arm in arm with her old enemy, the Duke 
of York, to show the people how comfortable they all were. 
This state of peace lasted half a year, when a dispute between 
the Earl of Warwick (one of the duke's powerful friends) and 
some of the king's servants at court led to an attack upon that 
earl, — who was a White Rose, — and to a sudden breaking-out 
of all old animosities. So here were greater ups and downs than 
ever. 

There were even greater ups and downs than these sooir 
after. After various battles, the Duke of York fled to Ireland, 
and his son, the Earl of March, to Calais, with their friends, 
the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick ; and a parliament was held 
declaring them all traitors. Little the worse for this, the Earl 
of Warwick presently came back, landed in Kent, was joined 
by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other powerful noblemen 
and gentlemen, engaged the king's forces at Northampton, sig- 
nally defeated them, and took the king himself prisoner, who 
was found in his tent, Warwick Vv^ould have been glad, I dare- 
say, to have taken the queen and prince too ; but they escaped 
into Wales, and thence into Scotland. 

The king was carried by the victorious force straight to 

London, and made to call a new parliament, which immediately 

declared that the Duke of York and those other noblemen 

- were not traitors, but excellent subjects. Then back comes 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SIXTH. j^x 

the duke from Ireland at the head of five hundred horsemen, 
rides from London to Westminster, and enters the House of 
Lords. There he laid his hand upon the cloth of gold which 
covered the empty throne, as if he had half a mind to sit down 
in it ; but he did not. On the Archbishop of Canterbury ask- 
ing him if he would visit the king, who was in his palace close 
by, he replied, " I know no one in this country, my lord, who 
ought not to visit mer None of the lords present spoke a 
single word ; so the duke went out as he had come in, estab- 
lished himself royally in the king's palace, and, six days after- 
wards, sent in to the lords a formal statement of his claim to 
the throne. The lords went to the king on this momentous sub- 
ject ; and after a great deal of discussion, in which the judges and 
the other law-officers were afraid to give an opinion on either 
side, the question was compromised. It was agreed that the 
present king should retain the crown, for his life, and that it 
should then pass to the Duke of York and his heirs. 

But the resolute queen, determined on asserting her son's 
right, would hear of no such thing. She came from Scotland 
to the north of England, where several powerful lords armed in 
her cause. The Duke of York, for his part, set off with some 
five thousand men, a little time before Christmas day, 1460, to 
give her battle. He lodged at Sandal Castle, near Wakefield \ 
and the Red Rose defied him to come out on Wakefield Green, 
and fight them then and there. His generals said he had best 
wait until his gallant son, the Earl of March, came up with his 
power ; but he wis determined to accept the challenge. He 
did so in an evil hour. He was hotly pressed on all sides, 
two thousand of his men lay dead on Wakefield Green, and he 
himself was taken prisoner. They set him down in mock state 
on an ant-hill, and twisted grass about his head, and pretended 
to pay court to him on their knees, saying, " O King ! without 
a kingdom, and Prince ! without a people, we hope your gra- 
cious Majesty is very well and happy." They did worse than 
this ; they cut his head off, and handed it on a pole to the 
queen, who laughed with delight when she saw it, (you recol- 
lect their walking so religiously and comfortably to St. Paul's !) 
and had it fixed, with a paper crown upon its head, on the 
walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his head too ; and 
the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy, who was fly- 
ing with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the 
heart by a murderous lord, — Lord Clifford by name, — whose 
father had been killed by the White Roses in the fight at St. 
Alban's. There was awful sacrifice of life in this battle ; for 



192 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



no quarter was given, and the queen was wild for revenge. 
When men unnaturally fight against their own countrymen, 
they are always observed to be more unnaturally cruel and 
filled with rage than they are against any other enemy. 

But Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke 
of York, not the first. The eldest son, Edward, Earl of March, 
was at Gloucester; and, vowing vengeance for the death of his 
father, his brother, and their faithful friends, he began to march 
against the queen. He had to turn and fight a great body of 
Welsh and Irish first, who worried his advance. These he de 
feated in a great fight at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford, 
where he beheaded a number of the Red Roses taken in battle, 
in retaliation for the beheading of the White Roses at Wake- 
field. The queen had the next turn of beheading. Having 
moved towards London, and falling in, between St. Alban's 
and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Nor- 
folk, White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose 
her, and had got the king with them, she defeated them with 
great loss, and struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, 
who were in the king's tent with him, and to whom the king had 
promised his protection. Her triumph, however, was very 
short. She had no treasure, and her army subsisted by plun- 
der. This caused them to be hated and dreaded by the peo- 
ple, and particularly by the London people, who were wealthy. 
As soon as the Londoners heard that Edward, Earl of March, 
united wUh the Earl of Warwick, was advancing towards the city, 
they refused to send the queen supplies, and made a great re- 
joicing. 

The q'aeen and her men retreated with all speed ; and 
Edward and Warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations 
on every side. The courage, beauty, and virtues of young 
Edward could not be sufficiently praised by the whole people. 
He rode into London like a conqueror, and met with an en- 
thusiastic welcome. A few days afterwards. Lord Falconbridge 
and the Bishop of Exeter assembled the citizens in St. John's 
Field, Clerkenwell, and asked them if they would have Henry 
of Lancaster for their king ? To this they all roared, " No, 
no, no ! " and " King Edward ! King Edward ! " Then, said 
those noblemen, would they love and serve young Edward ? 
To this they all cried, " Yes, yes ! " and threw up their caps, 
and clapped their hands, and cheered tremendously. 

Therefore it was declared, that, by joining the queen, and 
not protecting those two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster 
had forfeited the crown ; and Edward of York was proclaimed 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH. 193 

king. He made a great speech to the applauding people at 
Westminster, and sat down as sovereign of England on that 
throne, on the golden covering of which his father — worthy of 
a better fate than the bloody axe which cut the thread of so 
many lives in England, through so many years — had laid his 
hand. 



CHAPTER XXin. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH. 

King Edward the Fourth was not quite twenty-one years 
of age when he took that unquiet seat upon the throne of Eng- 
land. The Lancaster party, the Red Roses, were then assem- 
bling in great numbers near York, and it was necessary to give 
them battle instantly. But the stout Earl of Warwick, leading 
for the young king, and the young king himself closely follow- 
ing him, and the English people crowding round the royal 
standard, the White and the Red Roses met, on a wild March 
day, when the snow was falling heavily, at Towton ; and there 
such a furious battle raged between them, that the total loss 
amounted to forty thousand men, — all Englishmen, fighting 
upon English ground, against one another. The young king 
gained the day, took down the heads of his father and brother 
from the walls of York, and put up the heads of some of the 
most famous noblemen engaged in the battle on the other side. 
Then he went to London, and was crowned with great splen- 
dor. 

A new parliament met. No fewer than one hundred and 
fifty of the principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lan- 
caster side were declared traitors ; and the king, who had very 
little humanity, though he was handsome in person and agree- 
able in manner, resolved to do all he could to pluck up the 
Red Rose, root and branch. 

Queen Margaret, however, was still active for her young 
son. She obtained help from Scotland and from Normandy, 
and t(3ok several important English castles. But Warwick 
soon re-took them ; the queen lost all her treasure on board 
ship in a great storm ; and both she and her son suffered great 
misfortunes. Once in the winter weather, as they were riding 



xg^ A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

through a forest, they were attacked and plundered by a partj 
of robbers ; and when they had escaped from these men, and 
were passing alone and on foot through a thick, dark part of the 
wood, they came, all at once, upon another robber. So the 
queen, with a stout heart, took the little prince by the hand, 
and going straight up to that robber, said to him, " My friend, 
this is the youngest son of your lawful king ! I confide him tc 
your care." The robber was surprised, but took the boy in 
his arms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to their 
friends, In the end, the queen's soldiers being beaten and 
dispersed, she went abroad again, and kept quiet for the 
present. 

Now, all this time, the deposed King Henry was concealed 
by a Welsh knight, who kept him close in his castle. But 
next year the Lancaster party recovering their spirits, raised 
a large body of men, and called him out of his retirement to 
put him at their head. They were joined by some powerful 
noblemen who had sworn fidelity to the new king, but who 
were ready, as usual, to break their oaths whenever they 
thought there was anything to be got by it. One of the worst 
things in the history of the war of the Red and White Roses is 
the ease with which these noblemen, who should have set an 
example of honor to the people, left either side as they took 
slight offence, or were disappointed in their greedy expecta- 
tions and joined the other. Well, Warwick's brother soon 
beat the Lancastrians ; and the false noblemen being taken, 
were beheaded without a moment's loss of time. The deposed 
king had a narrow escape ; three of his servants were taken ; 
and one of them bore his cap of estate, which was set with 
pearls, and embroidered with two golden crowns. However, 
the head to which the cap belonged got safely into Lancashire, 
and lay pretty quietly there (the people in the secret being 
very true) for more than a year. At length an old monk gave 
such intelligence as led to Henry's being taken while he was 
sitting at dinner in a place called Wadington Hall. He was 
immediately sent to London, and met at Islington by the Earl 
of Warwick, by whose directions he was put upon a horse with 
his legs tied under it, and paraded three times round the pil- 
lory. Then he was carried off to the Tower, where they 
treated him well enough. 

The White Rose being so triumphant, the young king 
abandoned himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. 
But thorns were springing up under his bed of roses, as he 
soon found out j for having been privately married to Elizabeth 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH: 19^ 

Woodville, a young widow lady, very beautiful and very cap- 
tivating, and at last resolving to make his secret known and 
to declare her his queen, he gave some offence to the Earl of 
Warwick, who was usually called the Kingmaker, because of 
his power and influence, and because of his having lent 
such great help to placing Edward on the throne. This of- 
fence was not lessened by the jealousy with which the 
Nevil family (the Earl of Warwick's) regarded the promo- 
tion of the Woodville family. For the young queen was so 
bent on providing for her relations, that she made her 
father an earl and a great officer of state, married her five 
sisters to young noblemen of the highest rank, and provided 
for her younger brother, a young man of twenty, by marrying 
him to an immensely rich old Duchess of eighty. The Earl of 
Warwick took all this pretty graciously for a man of his proud 
temper, until the question arose to whom the king's sister, 
Margaret, should be married. The Earl of Warwick said, 
" To one of the French king's sons," and was allowed to go 
over to the French king to make friendly proposals for that 
purpose, and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. 
But while he was so engaged, the Woodville party married the 
young lady to the Duke of Burgundy. Upon this he came 
back in great rage and scorn, and shut himself up discontented 
in his castle at Middleham. 

A reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched 
up between the Earl of Warwick and the king, and lasted until 
the earl married his daughter, against the king's wishes, to the 
Duke of Clarence. While the marriage was being celebrated 
at Calais, the people in the north of England, where the influ- 
ence of the Nevil family was strongest, broke out into re- 
bellion ; their complaint was, that England was oppressed and 
plundered by the Woodville family, whom they demanded to 
have removed from power. As they were joined by great num- 
bers of people, and as they openly declared that they were sup- 
ported by the Earl of Warwick, the king did not know what to 
do. At last, as he wrote to the Earl beseeching his aid, he 
and his new- son-in-law came over to England, and began to 
Arrange the business by shutting the king up in Middleham 
Castle in the safe keeping of the Archbishop of York ; so 
England was not only in the strange position of having two 
kings at once, but they were both prisoners at the same time. 

Even as yet, however, the Kingmaker was so far true to the 
king, that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, took 
their leader prisoner, and brought him to the king, who or- 
9 



1^6 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

dered him to be immediately executed. He presently allowed 
the king to return to London, and there innumerable pledges 
of forgiveness and friendship were exchanged between them, 
and between the Nevils and the Woodvilles ; the king's eldest 
daughter was promised in marriage to the heir of the Nevil 
family ; and more friendly oaths were sworn, and more friendly 
promises made, than this book would hold. 

They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, 
the Archbishop of York made a feast for the king, the Earl of 
Warwick and the Duke of Clarence, at his house, the Moor, 
in Hertfordshire. The king was washing his hands before 
supper, when some one whispered him that a body of a hun- 
dred men were lying in ambush outside the house. Whether 
this were true or untrue, the king took fright, mounted his 
horse, and rode through the dark night to Windsor Castl-e. 
Another reconciliation was patched up between him and the 
Kingmaker ; but it was a short one, and it was the last. A 
new rising took place in Lincolnshire, and the King marched 
to repress it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both the 
Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were traitors, who 
had secretly assisted it, and who had been prepared publicly 
to join it on the following day. In these dangerous circum- 
stances, they both took ship and away to the French court. 

And here a meeting took place between the Earl of War 
wick and his old enemy, the Dowager Queen Margaret, through 
whom his father had had his head struck off, and to whom he 
had been a bitter foe. But now, when he said that he had 
done with the ungrateful and perfidious Edward of York, and 
that henceforth he devoted himself to the restoration of the 
House of Lancaster, either in the person of her husband or ol 
her little son, she embraced him as if he had ever been her 
dearest friend. She did more than that ; she married her son to 
his second daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable this 
marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to 
the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law, the 
Kingmaker, would never make him king now. So, being but a 
weak-minded young traitor, possessed of very little worth or 
sense, he readily listened to an artful court-lady sent over for 
the purpose, and promised to turn traitor once more, and g(? 
over to his brother, King Edward, when a fitting opportunity 
should come 

The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon re- 
deemed his promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret, by 
invading England, and landing at Plymouth, where he instantly 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH. 



^97 



proclaimed King Henry, and summoned all Englishmen be< 
tween the ages of sixteen and sixty to join his banner. Then with 
his army increasing as he marched along, he went northward, 
and came so near King Edward, who was in that part of the 
country, that Edward had to ride hard for it to the coast of 
Norfolk, and thence to get away, in such ships as he could find, 
to Holland. Thereupon the triumphant Kingmaker and his 
false son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, went to London, took 
the old king out of the Tower, and walked him in a great pro- 
cession to St; Paul's Cathedral with the crown upon his head. 
This did not improve the temper of the Duke of Clarence, who 
saw himself farther off from being king than ever ; but he kept 
his secret, and said nothing. The Nevil family were restored 
to all their honors and glories, and the Woodvilles and the rest 
were disgraced. The Kingmaker, less sanguinary than the 
king, shed no blood except that of the Earl of Worcester, who 
had been so cruel to the people as to have gained the title of the 
Butcher. Him they caught hidden in a tree, and him they tried 
and executed. No other death stained the Kingmaker's tri- 
umph. 

To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, 
next year, landing at Ravenspur, coming on to York, causing 
all his men to cry " Long live King Henry ! " and swearing on 
the altar, without a blush, that he came to lay no claim to the 
Crown. Now was the time for the Duke of Clarence, who 
ordered his men to assume the White Rose, and declare for his 
brother. The Marquis of Montague, though the Earl of War- 
wick's brother, also declining to fight King Edward, he went 
on successfully to London, where the Archbishop of York let 
him into the city, and where the people made great demonstra- 
tions in his favor. For this they had four reasons. Firstly, 
there were great numbers of the king's adherents hiding in 
the city and ready to break out; secondly, the king owed 
them a great deal of money, which they could never hope 
to get if he were unsuccessful ; thirdly, there was a young 
prince to inherit the crown ; and fourthly, the king was gay 
and handsome, and more popular than a better man might 
have been with the city ladies. After a stay of only two days 
with these worthy supporters, the king marched out to Barnet 
Common to give the Earl of Warwick battle. And now it was 
to be seen, for the last time, whether the king or the King- 
maker was to carry the day. 

While the battle was yet pending, the faint-hearted Duke of 
Clarence began to repent, and sent over secret messages to his 



X^g A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

father-in-law, offering his services in mediation with the king. 
But the Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them, and re- 
plied that Clarence was false and perjured, and that he would 
settle the quarrel by the sword. The battle began at fouf 
o'clock in the morning, and lasted until ten ; and during the 
greater part of the time it was fought in a thick mist, absurdly 
supposed to be raised by a magician. The loss of life was very 
great, for the hatred was strong on both sides. The Kingmakei 
was defeated, and the king triumphed. Both the Earl of War 
wick and his brother were slain ; and their bodies lay in St, 
Paul's for some days, as a spectacle to the people. 

Margaret's spirit was not broken even by this great blow. 
Within five days she was in arms again, and raised her stand- 
ard in Bath, whence she set off with her army to try and join 
Lord Pembroke, who had a force in Wales. But the king 
coming up with her outside the town of Tewkesbury, and order- 
ing his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, who was a brave 
soldier, to attack her men, she sustained an entire defeat, and 
was taken prisoner, together with her son, now only eighteen 
years of age. The conduct of the king to this poor youth was 
worthy of his cruel character. He ordered him to be led into 
his tent. " And what," said he, " brought you to England ? " 
" I came to England," replied the prisoner, with a spirit which 
a man of spirit might have admired in a captive, " to recover 
my father's kingdom, which descended to him as his right, and 
from him descends to me as mine." The king, drawing off his 
iron gauntlet, struck him with it in the face ; and the Duke of 
Clarence and some other lords, who were there, di^ew their noble 
swords and killed him. 

His mother survived him a prisoner, for five years ; after 
her ransom by the King of France, she survived for six years 
more. Within three weeks of this murder, Henry died one of 
those convenient sudden deaths which were so common in the 
Tower; in plainer words, he was murdered by the king's 
order. 

Having no particular excitement on his hands after this 
great defeat of the Lancaster party, and being, perhaps, desirous 
to get rid of some of his fat (for he was now getting too cor- 
pulent to be handsome), the king thought of making war on 
France. As he wanted more money for this purpose than the 
Parliament could give him, though they were usually ready 
enough for war, he invented a new way of raising it, by send- 
ing for the principal citizens of London, and telling them, with 
a grave face that he wgs very much in want of cash^ and would 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH, 199 

take It very kind in them if they would lend him some. It 
being impossible for them safely to refuse, they complied, and 
the moneys thus forced from them were called — no doubt to 
the great amusement of the king and the court, — as if they 
were free gifts, "benevolences." What with grants from 
Parliament, and what with benevolences, the king raised an 
army, and passed over to Calais. As nobody wanted war, Kow- 
ever, the French king made proposals of peace, which were 
accepted; and a truce was concluded for seven long years. 
The proceedings between the Kings of France and England on 
this occasion w*ere very friendly, very splendid, and very dis- 
trustful. They finished with a meeting between the two kings, 
on a temporary bridge over the river Somme, where they em- 
braced through two holes in a strong wooden grating, like a 
lion's cage, and made several bows and fine speeches to one 
another. 

It was now time that the Duke of Clarence should be pun- 
ished for his treacheries ; and Fate had his punishment in store. 
He was, probably, not trusted by the king.^ (for who could trust 
him who knew him ?) and he had certainly a powerful opponent 
in his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who being avari- 
cious and ambitious, wanted to marry that widowed daughter 
of the Earl of Warwick's who had been espoused to the de- 
ceased young prince at Calais. Clarence, who wanted all the 
family wealth for himself, secreted this lady, whom Richard 
found disguised as a servant in the City of London, and whom 
he married ; arbitrators appointed by the king then divided the 
property between the brothers. This led to ill-will and mis- 
trust between them. Clarence's wife dying, and he wishing to 
make another marriage which was obnoxious to the king, his 
ruin was hurried by that means too. At first the court struck 
at his retainers and dependents, and accused some of them of 
magic and witchcraft, and similar nonsense. Successful against 
this small game, it then mounted to the duke himself, who was 
impeached by his brother, the king, in person, on a variety of 
such charges. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be pub- 
licly executed. He never was publicly executed ; but he met 
his death somehow in the Tower, and, no doubt, through some 
agency of the king or his brother Gloucester, or both. It was 
supposed at the time that he was told to choose the manner of his 
death, and that he chose to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey 
wine. I hope the story may be true ; for it would have been a 
becoming death for such a miserable creature. 

The king survived him some five years. He died in thf^ 



200 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

forty-second year of his life, and the twenty-third of his reiga 
He had a very good capacity, and some good points ; but he 
was selfish, careless, sensual, and cruel. He was a favorite 
with the people for his showy manners , and the people were 
a good example to him m the constancy of their attachment. 
He was penitent on his death-bed, for his " benevolences " and 
other extortions, and ordered restitution to be made to th^ 
people who had suffered from them. He also called about his 
bed the enriched members of the WoodviUe family, and the 
proud lords whose honors were of older date, and endeavored 
to reconcile them for the sake of the peaceful succession of his 
son, and the tranquility of England. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH. 

The late king's eldest son, the Prince of Wales, called Ed- 
ward, after him, was only thirteen years of age at his father's 
death. He was at Ludlow Castle with his uncle, the Earl of 
Rivers. The prince's brother, the Duke of York, only eleven 
years of age, was in London with his mother The boldest, most 
crafty and most dreaded nobleman in England at that time was 
their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and everybody won- 
dered how the two poor boys would fare with such an uncle, 
for a friend or a foe. 

The queen, their mother, being exceedingly uneasy about 
this, was anxious that instructions should be sent to Lord Rivers 
to raise an army to escort the young king safely to London. 
But Lord Hastings, who was of the court party opposed to the 
Woodvilles, and who disliked the thought of giving them that 
power, argued against the proposal, and obliged the queen to 
be satisfied with an escort of two thousand horse. The Duke 
of Gloucester, did nothing, at first, to justify suspicion. He 
came from Scotland (where he was commanding an army) to 
York, and was there the first to swear allegiance to his nephew. 
He then wrote a condoling letter to the queen-mother, and set 
ofif to be present at the coronation in London. 

Now the young king, journeying towards London too, with 
lord River? and Lord Gray, came to Stony Stratford as hi? 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH. 201 

nncle came to Northampton, about ten miles distant ; and 
when those two lords heard that the Duke of Gloucester was so 
near, they proposed to the young king that they should go back 
and greet him in his name. The boy being very wilhng that 
they should do so ; they rode off and were received with great 
friendliness, and asked by the Duke of Gloucester to stay and 
dine with him. In the evening, while they were merry together, 
up came the Duke of Buckingham with three hundred horse- 
men ; and next morning the two lords, and the two dukes, and 
the three hundred horsemen rode away together to rejom the 
king. , Just as they were entering Stony Stratford, the Duke of 
Gloucester, checking his horse, turned suddenly on the two 
lords, charged them with alienating from him the affections of 
his sweet nephew, and caused them to be arrested by the three 
hundred horsemen and taken back. Then he and the Duke of 
Buckingham went straight to the king (whom they had now m 
their power), to whom they made a show of kneeling down, and 
offering great love and submission ; and then they ordered his 
attendants to disperse, and took him, alone with them, to 
Northampton. 

A few days afterwards they conducted him to London, and 
lodged him in the bishop's palace. But he did not remain 
there long , for the Duke of Buckingham, with a tender face, 
made a speech, expressing how anxious he was for the royal 
boy's safety, and how much safer he would be in the Tower 
until his coronation, than he could be anywhere else. So to 
the Tower he was taken, very carefully, and the Duke of Glou- 
cester was named Protector of the State. 

Although Gloucester had proceeded thus far with a very 
smooth countenance ; and although he was a clever man, fair 
of speech, and not ill looking, in spite of one of his shoulders 
being something higher than the other ; and although he had 
come into the city riding bare-headed at the king's side, and 
looking very fond of him, — he had made the king's mother more 
uneasy yet, and, when the royal boy was taken to the Tower, 
she became so alarmed, that she took sanctuary in Westminster 
with her five daughters. 

Nor did she do this without reason ; for the Duke of Glou- 
cester, finding that the lords who were opposed to the Woodville 
family were faithful to the young king nevertheless, quick/y re- 
solved to strike a blow for himself. Accordingly, while those 
lords met in council at the Tower, he and those who were in 
his interest met in separate council at his own residence, Crosby 
Palace, in Bishopsgate Street. Being at last quite prepared. 



901 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

he one day appeared unexpectedly at the council in the Towel", 
and appeared to be very jocular and merry. He was particu 
larly gay with the Bishop of Ely , praising the strawberries thai 
grew in his garden on Holborn Hill, and asking him to have 
some gathered that he might eat them at dmner. The bishop, 
quite proud of the honor, sent one of his men to fetch some, 
and the duke, still very jocular and gay, went out, and the 
council all said what a very agreeable duke he was ! In a 
little time, however, he came back quite altered \ not at a^' 
jocular, frownmg and fierce ^ and suddenly said, — 

" What do those persons deserve who have compassed my 
destruction , I being the king's lawful, as well as natural, pro- 
tector?" 

To this strange question Lord Hastings replied, that they 
deserved death, whosoever they were. 

" Then," said the duke, *' I tell you that they are that sor 
ceress my brother's wife," meaning the queen, " and that othei 
sorceress, Jane Shore,— who, by witchcraft, have withered my 
body, and caused my arm to shrink as I now show you." 

He then pulled up his sleeve, and showed them his arm, 
which was shrunken, it is true, but which had been so, as they 
all very well knew, from the hour of his birth 

Jane Shore, being then the lover of Lord Hastings, as she 
had formerly been of the late king, that lord knew that he him- 
self was attacked. So he said, in some confusion, " Certainly, 
my lord, if they have done this, they be worthy of punishment." 

" If ? " said the Duke of Gloucester. " Do you talk to me 
of ifs } I tell you that they have so done • and I will make it 
good upon thy body, thou traitor ! " 

With that he struck the table a great blow with his fist. This 
was a signal to some of his people outside to cry, " Treason ! " 
They immediately did so, and there was a rush into the chamber 
of so many armed men that it was filled in a moment. 

** First," said the Duke of Gloucester to Lord Hastings, " I 
arrest thee, traitor ! And let him," he added to the armed men 
who took him, " have a priest at once ; for, by St. Paul, I will 
not dine until I have seen his head off!" 

Lord Hastings was hurried to the green by the Tower chapel, 
and there beheaded on a log of wood that happened to be lying 
on the ground. Then the duke dined with a good appetite ; and 
after dinner, summoning the principal citizens to attend him. 
told them that Lord Hastings, and the rest, had designed to 
murder both himself and the Duke of Buckingham who stood 
by his side, if he had not providentially discovered their design 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FIFTH. 203 

He requested them to be so obliging as to inform their fellow- 
citizens of the truth of what he said, and issued a proclamation 
(prepared and neatly copied out beforehand) to the same 
effect. 

On the same day that the duke did these things in th© 
Tower, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, the boldest and most undaunted 
of men, went down to Pontefract, arrested Lord Rivers, Lord 
Gray, and two other gentlemen, and publicly executed them 
on the scaffold, without any trial, for having intended the 
duke's death. Three days afterwards, the duke, not to lose 
time, went down the river to Westminster in his barge, attended 
by divers bishops, lords, and soldiers, and demanded that the 
queen should deliver her second son, the Duke of York, into 
his safe-keeping. The queen, being obliged to comply, resigned 
the child after she had wept over him ; and Richard of Glou- 
cester placed him with his brother in the Tower. Then he 
seized Jane Shore ; and, because she had been the lover of 
the late king, confiscated her property, and got her sentenced 
to do public penance in the streets, by walking in a scanty 
dress, with bare feet, and carrying a lighted candle, to St. 
Paul's Cathedral, through the most crowded part of the city. 

Having now all things ready for his own advancement, he 
caused a friar to preach a sermon at the cross which stood in 
front of St. Paul's Cathedral, in which he dwelt upon the prof- 
ligate manners of the late king, and upon the late shame of 
Jane Shore, and hinted that the princes were not his children. 
" Whereas, good people," said the friar, whose name was 
Shaw, " my Lord the Protector, the noble Duke of Gloucester, 
that sweet prince, the pattern of all the noblest virtues, is the 
perfect image and express likeness of his father." There had 
been a little plot between the duke and the friar, that the duke 
should appear in the crowd at this moment, when it was ex- 
pected that the people would cry, " Long live King Richard ! " 
But either through the friar saying the words too soon, or 
through the duke's coming too late, the duke and the words 
did not come together, and the people only laughed, and the 
friar sneaked off ashamed. 

The Duke of Buckingham was a better hand at such busi- 
ness than the friar ; so he went to the Guildhall the next day, 
and addressed the citizens in the Lord Protector's- behalf. A 
few dirty men who had been hired and stationed there for the 
purpose, crying, when he had done, " God save King Richard ! " 
he made them a great bow, and thanked them with all his heart. 
Next day, t© make an end of it, he went with the mayor and 



204 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

some lords and citizens to Bayard Castle, by the river, where 
Richard then was, and read an address, humbly entreating him 
to accept the crown of England. Richard, who looked down 
upon them out of a window, and pretended to be in great un- 
easiness and alarm, assured them there was nothing he desired 
less, and that his deep affection for his nephev/s forbade him 
to think of it. To this the Duke of Buckingham replied, with 
pretended warmth, that the free people of England would 
never submit to his nephew's rule ; and that if Richard, who 
was the lawful heir, refused the crown, why then they must 
find some one else to wear it. The Duke of Gloucester re- 
turned, that since he used that strong language, it became his 
painful duty to think no more of himself, and to accept the 
crown. 

Upon that the people cheered and dispersed \ and the 
Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham passed a 
pleasant evening, talking over the play they had just acted with 
so much success, and every word of which they had prepared 
together. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD. 

King Richard the Third was up betimes in the morn- 
ing, and went to Westminster Hall, In the hall was a marble 
seat, upon which he sat himself down between two great noble- 
men, and told the people that he began the new reign in that 
place, because the first duty of a sovereign was to administer 
the laws equally to all, and to maintain justice. He then 
mounted his horse, and rode back to the city, where he was 
received by the clergy and the crowd as if he really had a right 
to the throne, and really were a just man. The clergy and the 
crowd must have been rather ashamed of themselves in secret, 
I think, for being such poor-spirited knaves. 

The new king and his queen were soon crowned with a 
great deal of show and noise, which the people liked very much ; 
and then the king set forth on a royal progress through his 
dominions. He was crowned a second time at York, in order 
that the people might have show and noise enough : and wher- 
ever he went was received with shouts ©f rejoicing, — fr^m 4 



ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE THIRD. 205 

good many people of strong lungs, who were paid to strain 
their throats in crying, " God save King Richard ! " The 
plan was so successful, that I am told it has been imitated 
since, by other usurpers, in other progresses through other 
dominions. 

While he was on this journey, King Richard stayed a week 
at Warwick. And from Warwick he sent instructions home 
for one of the wickedest murders that ever was done, — the 
murder of the two young princes, his nephews, who were shut 
up in the Tower of London. 

Sir Robert Brackenbury was at that time Governor of the 
Tower. To him, by the hands of a messenger named John 
Green, did King Richard send a letter, ordering him by some 
means to put the two young princes to death. But Sir Robert 
— I hope because he had children of his own, and loved them — 
sent John Green back again, riding and spurring along the 
dusty roads, with the answer that he could not do so horrible 
a piece of work. The king, having frowningly considered a 
little, called to him Sir James Tyrrel, his mastet of the horse, 
and gave him authority to take command of the Tower, 
whenever he would, for twenty-four hours, and to keep all the 
keys of the Tower during that space of time. Tyrrel, well 
knowing what was wanted, looked about him for two hardened 
ruffians, and chose John Dighton, one of his own grooms, and 
Miles Forest, who was a murderer by trade. Having secured 
these two assistants, he went upon a day in August to the 
Tower, showed his authority from the king, took the command 
for four-and twenty hours, and obtained possession of the keys. 
And when the black night came, he went creeping, creeping, 
like a guilty villain as he was, up the dark stone winding 
stairs, and along the dark stone passages, until he came to the 
door of the room where the two young princes, having said 
their prayers, lay fast asleep, clasped in each other's arms. 
And, while he watched and listened at the door, he sent in 
those evil demons, John Dighton and Miles Forest, who 
smothered the two princes with the bed and pillows, and car- 
ried their bodies down the stairs, and buried them under a 
great heap of stones at the staircase foot. And, when the day 
came, he gave up the command of the Tower, and restored the 
keys, and hurried away without once looking behind him ; and 
Sir Robert Brackenbury went with fear and sadness to the 
princes' room, and found the princes gone forever. 

You know through all this history, how true it is that trai* 
*«rs are never true ; and you will not be surprised to learn that 



2o6 A cmLr)'S HISTORY OF EI^GLAND, 

the Duke of Buckingham soon turned against King Richard, 
and joined a great conspiracy that was formed to dethrone him, 
and to place the crown upon its rightful owner's head. Rich- 
ard had meant to keep the murder secret ; but when he heard 
through his spies that this conspiracy existed, and that many 
lords and gentlemen drank 'n secret to the healths of the two 
young princes in the Tower, he made it known that they were 
dead. The conspirators, though thwarted for a moment, soon 
resolved to set up for the crown, against the murderous Rich- 
ard, Henry, Earl of Richmond, grandson of Catherine, that 
widow of Henry the Fifth who married Owen Tudor. And, as 
Henry was of the house of Lancaster, they proposed that he 
should marry the Princess Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the 
late king, now the heiress of the house of York, and thus, by 
uniting the rival families, put an end to the fatal wars of the 
Red and White Roses. All being settled, a time was appointed 
for Henry to come over from Brittany, and for a great rising 
against Richard to take place in several parts of England at 
the same hour. On a certain day, therefore, in October, the 
revolt took place ; but unsuccessfully. Richard was prepared. 
Henry was driven back at sea by a storm, his followers in Eng- 
land were dispersed, and the Duke of Buckingham was taken, 
and at once beheaded in the market-place at Salisbury. 

The time of his success was a good time, Richard thought, 
for summoning a parliament, and getting some money. So a 
parliament was called ; and it flattered and fawned upon him 
as much as he could possibly desire, and declared him to be 
the rightful king of England, and his only son, Edward, then 
eleven years of age, the next heir to the throne. 

Richard knew full well, that, let the Parliament say what it 
would, the Princess Elizabeth was remembered by people as 
the heiress of the house of York ; and having accurate informa- 
tion besides, of its being designed by the conspirators to marry 
her to Henry of Richmond, he felt that it would much 
strengthen him and weaken them to be beforehand with them, 
and marry her to his son. With this view he went to the 
Sanctuary at Westminster, where the late king's widow and her 
daughter still were, and besought them to come to court ; where 
(he swore by anything and everything) they should be safely 
and honorably entertained. They came accordingly ; but had 
scarcely been at court a month when his son died suddenly, — 
or was poisoned, — and his plan was crushed to pieces. 

In this extremity King Richard, always active, thought, " I 
must make another plan." And he made the plan of marrying 



England UNDER richard the third. 2 of 

the Princess Elizabeth himself, although she was his niece. 
There was one difficulty in the way ; his wife, the Queen Anne, 
was alive. But he knew (remembering his nephews) how to 
remove that obstacle ; and he made love to the Princess Eliza- 
beth, telling her he felt [x^rfectly confident that the Queen 
would die in February. The Princess was not a very scrupu- 
lous young lady ; for, instead of rejecting the murderer of her 
brothers with scorn and hatred, she openly declared she loved 
him dearly , and when February came, and the queen did not 
die, she expressed her impatient opinion that she was too long 
about it. However, King Richard was not so far out in his 
prediction but that she died in March, — he took good care of 
that ; and then this precious pair hoped to be married. But 
they were disappointed ; for the idea of such a marriage was 
so unpopular in the country, that the king's chief counsellors, 
Ratcliffe and Catesby, would by no means undertake to pro- 
pose it, and the king was eyen obliged to declare in public that 
he had never thought of such a thing. 

He was by this time dreaded and hated by all classes of his 
subjects. His nobles deserted every day to Henry's side ; he 
dared not call another parliament, lest his crimes should be 
denounced there ; and, for want of money, he was obliged to 
get " benevolences " from the citizens, which exasperated them 
ail against him. It was said too, that, being stricken by his 
conscience, he dreamed frightful dreams, and started up in the 
night-time, wild with terror and remorse. Active to the last 
through all this, he issued vigorous proclamations against 
Henry of Richmond and all his followers, when he heard that 
they were coming against him with a fleet from France, and 
took the field as fierce and savage as a wild boar, — the animal 
represented on his shield. 

Henry of Richmond landed with six thousand men at Mil- 
ford Haven, and came on against King Richard, then encamped 
at Leicester with an army twice as great, through North 
Wales. On Bosworth Field the two armies met ; and Richard, 
looking along Henry's ranks, and seeing them crowded with 
the English nobles who had abandoned him, turned pale 
when he beheld the powerful Lord Stanley and his son 
(whom he had tried hard to retain) among them. But he 
was as brave as he was wicked, and plunged into the 
thickest of the fight. He was riding hither and thither, 
laying about him in all directions, when he observed the 
Earl of Northumberland — one of his few great allies — to 
stand inactive, and the main body of his troops to hesitate. 



2oS A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

At the same moment, his desperate glance caught Henry oit 
Richmond among a little group of his knights. Riding hard at 
him, and crying, " Treason ! " he killed his standard-bearer, 
fiercely unhorsed another gentleman, and aimed a powerful 
stroke at Henry himself, to cut him down. But Sir William 
Stanley parried it as it fell ; and, before Richard could raise 
his arm again, he was borne down in a press of numbers, un- 
horsed, and killed. Lord Stanley picked up the crown, all 
bruised and trampled, and stained with blood, and put it upon 
Richmond's head, amid loud and rejoicing cries of " Long live 
King Henry ! " 

That night, a horse was led up to the Church of the Gray 
Friars at Leicester, across whose back was tied, like some 
worthless sack, a naked body brought there for burial. It was 
the body of the last of the Plantagenet line. King Richard the 
Third, usurper and murderer, slain at the battle of Bosworth 
Field in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of two 
years. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH. 

King Henry the Seventh did not turn out to be as fine a 
fellow as the nobility and people hoped, in the first joy of their 
deliverance from Richard the Third. He was very cold, crafty, 
and calculating, and would do almost anything for money. He 
possessed considerable ability , but his chief merit appears to 
have been that he was not cruel when there was nothing to be 
got by it. 

The new king had promised the nobles who had espoused 
his cause that he would marry the Princess Elizabeth. The 
first thing he did was to direct her to be removed from the 
castle of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, where Richard had 
placed her, and restored to the care of her mother in London. 
The young Earl of Warwick, Edward Plantagenet, son and heir of 
the late Duke of Clarence, had been kept a prisoner in the same 
old Yorkshire castle with her. This boy, who was now fifteen, 
the new king placed in the Tower for safety. Then he came 
to London in great state, and gratified the people with a fine 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH. 2 of 

procession \ on which kind of show he often very much relied 
tor keeping them in good humor. The sports and feasts which 
look place were followed by a terrible fever, called the sweat- 
ing sickness ; of which great numbers of people died. Lord 
mayors and aldermen are thought to have suffered most from 
it ; whether because they were in the habit of over-eating them- 
selves, or because they were very jealous of preserving filth and 
nuisances in the city (as they have been since), I don't know. 

The king's coronation was postponed on account of the 
general ill-health \ and he afterwards deferred his marriage, as 
if he were not very anxious that it should take place -, and, 
even after that, deterred the queen's coronation so long that he 
gave offence to the York party. However, he set these things 
right in the end, by hangmg some men, and seizing on the rich 
possessions of others, by granting more popular pardons to the 
followers of the late kmg than could at first be got from him ; 
and by employmg about his court some not very scrupulous 
persons who had been employed in the previous reign. 

A^ this reign wa^ principally remarkable for two very curious 
impostures which have become famous in history, we will make 
those two stories its principal feature. 

There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who 
had for a pupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, the 
son of a baker Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, and 
partly to carry out the designs of a secret party formed against 
the king, this priest declared that his pupil, the boy, was no 
other than the young Earl of Warwick, who (as everybody 
might have known) was safely locked up in the Tower of Lon- 
don. The priest and the boy went over to Ireland ; and at 
Dublin enlisted in their cause all ranks of the people, who 
seem to have been generous enough, but exceedingly irrational. 
The Earl of Kildare, the Governor of Ireland, declared that he 
belie /ed the boy to be what the priest represented ; and the 
boy, who had been well tutored by the priest, told them such 
things of his childhood, and gave them so many descriptions of 
the royal family, that they were perpetually shouting and hurrah- 
mg, and drinking his health, and making all kinds of noisy and 
thirsty demonstrations to express their belief in him. Nor was 
this feeling confined to Ireland alone ; for the Earl of Lincoln, 
whom the late usurper had named as his successor, went over 
to the young pretender \ and, after holding a secret correspond- 
ence with the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of 
Edward the Fourth, who detested the present king and all his 
mce, sailed to Dublin with two thousand German soldiers ^ 



jlO A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

her providing. In this promising state of the boy's fortune^ 
he was crowned there, with a crown taken off the head of a 
statue of the Virgin Mary j and was then, according to the Irish 
custom of those days, carried home on the shoulders of a big 
chieftain possessing a great deal more strength than sense. 
Father Simons, you may be sure, was mighty busy at the coro- 
nation. 

Ten days afterwards, the Germans and the Irish, and the 
"priest and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lan- 
cashire to invade England. The king, who had good intelli- 
gence of their movements, set up his standard at Nottingham, 
where vast numbers resorted to him every day, while the F>arl 
of Lincoln could gain but very few. With his small force he 
tried to make for the town of Newark ; but the king's army 
getting between him and that place, he had no choice but to 
risk a battle at Stoke. It soon ended in the complete destruc- 
tion of the pretender's forces, one half of whom were killed ; 
among them the earl himself. The priest and the baker's boy 
were taken prisoners. The priest, after confessing the tricky 
was shut up in prison, where he afterwards died, — suddenly per- 
haps. The boy was taken into the king's kitchen, and made a 
turnspit. He was afterwards raised to the station of one of the 
king's falconers ; and so ended this strange imposition. 

There seems reason to suspect that the dowager queen — 
always a restless and busy woman — had had some share in 
tutoring the bakerls son. The king was very angry with her, 
whether or no. He seized upon her property, and shut her up 
in a convent at Bermondsey. 

One might suppose that the end of this story would have 
put the Irish people on their guard ; but they were quite ready 
to receive a second impostor, as they had received the first, and 
that same troublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon gave them 
the opportunity. All of a sudden there appeared at Cork, in a 
vessel arriving from Portugal, a young man of excellent abili- 
ties, of very handsome appearance and most winning manners, 
who declared himself to be Richard, Duke of York, the second 
son of King Edward the Fourth. " O," said some, even of 
those ready Irish believers, "but surely that young prince was 
murdered by his uncle in the tower ! " " It is supposed so," 
said the engaging young man ; "and my brother was killed in 
that gloomy prison ; but I escaped,— it don't matter how at 
present, — and have been wandering about the world for seven 
long years." This explanation being quite satisfactory to num- 
bers of the Irish people, they began again to shout and to hur 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH. 21 1 

rah, and to drink his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty 
demonstrations all over again. And the big chieftain in Dublin 
began to look out for another coronation, and another young 
king to be carried home on his back. 

Now, King Henry bemg then on bad terms with France, the 
French king, Charles the Eighth, saw that, by pretending to 
believe in the handsome young man, he could trouble his enemy 
sorely. So he invited him over to the French court, and ap- 
pointed him a body-guard, and treated him in all respects as if 
he really were the Duke of York. Peace, however, being soon 
concluded between the two kings, the pretended duke was 
turned adrift, and wandered for protection to the Duchess of 
Burgundy. She, after feigning to inquire into the reality of his 
claims, declared him to be the very picture of her dear departed 
brother, gave him a body-guard, at her court, of thirty ?ialber- 
diers, and called him by the sounding name of the White Rose 
of England, 

The leading members of the White-Rose party in England 
sent over an agent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascertain 
whether the White Rose's claims were good ; the king also sent 
over his agents to inquire into the Rose's history. The White 
Rose declared the young man to be really the Duke of York ; 
the king declared him to be Perkin Warbeck, the son of a mer- 
chant of the city of Tournay, who had acquired his knowledge 
of England, its language and manners, from the English mer- 
chants who trade in Flanders ; it was also stated by the royal 
agents that he had been in the service of Lady Brompton, the 
wife of an exiled English nobleman, and that the Duchess of 
Burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught expressly 
for this deception. The king then required the Archduke 
Philip — who was the sovereign of Burgundy — to banish this new 
pretender, or to deliver him up ; but, as the archduke replied 
that he could not control the duchess in her own land, the king, 
in revenge, took the market of English cloth away from Ant- 
werp, and prevented all commercial intercourse between the two 
countries. 

He also by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clifford 
to betray his employers ; and he denouncing several famous 
English noblemen as being secretly the friends of Perkin War- 
beck, the king had three of the foremost executed at once. 
Whether he pardoned the remainder because they were poor, I 
do not know ; but it is only too probable that he refused to par- 
don one famous nobleman against whom the same Clifford soon 
^fttrwards informed separately, because he was rich. This was 



212 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

no other than Sir William Stanley, who had saved the king's life 
at the battle of Bosworth Field. It is very doubtful whether 
his treason amounted to much more than his having said, that, 
if he were sure the young man was the Duke of York, he would 
not take arms against him. Whatever he had done he admit- 
ted, like an honorable spirit ; and he lost his head for it, and 
the covetous king gained all his wealth. 

Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years ; but, as the 
Flemings began to complain heavily of the loss of their trade 
by the stoppage of the Antwerp market on his account, and as 
it was not unlikely that they might even go so far as to take 
his life, or give him up, he found it necessary to do something. 
Accordingly, he made a desperate sally, and landed, with only 
a few hundred men, on the coast of Deal. But he was soon 
glad to get back to the place from whence he came ; for the 
country people rose against his followers, killed a great many, 
and took a hundred and fifty prisoners, who were all driven to 
London, tied together with ropes, like a team of cattle. Every 
one of them was hanged on some part or other of the sea-shore, 
in order that, if any more men should come over with Perkin 
Warbeck, they might see the bodies as a warnmg before they 
landed. 

Then the wary king, by making a treaty of commerce with 
the Flemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country ; and, 
by completely gaining over the Irish to his side, deprived him 
of that asylum too. He wandered away to Scotland, and told his 
story at that court. King James the P'ourth of Scotland, who was 
no friend to King Henry, and had no reason to be (for King 
Henry had bribed his Scotch lords to betray him more than 
once, but had never succeeded in his plots), gave him a great 
reception, called him his cousin, and gave him in marriage the 
Lady Catherine Gordon, a beautiful and charming creature, re- 
lated to the royal house of Stuart. 

Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretendei, 
the king still undermined and bought and bribed, and kept his 
doings and Perkin Warbeck's story in the dark, when he might, 
one would imagine, have rendered the matter clear to all Eng- 
land. But for all this bribing of the Scotch lords, at the Scotch 
king's court, he could not procure the Pretender to be delivered 
Up to him. James, though not very particular in many respects, 
Would not betray him ; and the ever-busy Duchess of Burgundy, 
so provided him with arms and good soldiers, and with money 
besides, that he had soon a little army of fifteen hundred men 
of varieus ii*ti©ns. With these, and aided by the Scottish king 



ENGLAND Under HEMkV the SEVENTit. 



2t% 



in person, he crossed the Border into England, and made a 
proclamation to the people ; in which he called the king " Henry 
Tudor," oiffered large rewards to any who should take or dis- 
tress him, and announced himself as King Richard the P'ourth, 
come to receive the homage of his faithful subjects. His faith- 
ful subjects, however, cared nothmg for him, and hated his 
faithful troops, who, being of different nations, quarrelled also 
runong themselves: Worse than this, if worse were possible, 
they began to plunder the country ; upon which the White Rose 
said that he would rather lose his rights than gain them through 
the miseries of the English people. The Scottish king made a 
jest of his scruples ; but they and their whole force went back 
again without fighting a battle. 

The worst consequence of this attempt was, that a rising 
took place among the people of Cornwall, who considered them- 
selves too heavily taxed to meet the charges of the expected 
war. Stimulated by Flammock, a lawyer, and Joseph, a black- 
smith, and joined by Lord Audley and some other country 
gentlemen, they marched on all the way to Deptford Bridge, 
where they fought a battle with the king's army. They were 
defeated, though the Cornish men fought with great bravery ; 
and the lord was beheaded, and the lawyer and the blacksmith 
were hanged, drawn, and quartered. The rest were pardoned. 
The king, who believed every man to be as avaricious as him- 
self, and thought that money could settle anything, allowed 
them to make bargains for their liberty with the soldiers who 
had taken them. 

Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and never 
to find rest anywhere, — a sad fate, almost a sufficient punish- 
ment for an imposture which he seems in time to have half 
believed himself, — lost his Scottish refuge through a truce being 
made between the two kmgs, and found himself once more with- 
out a country before him in which he could lay his head. But 
James (always honorable and true to him, alike when he melted 
down his plate, and even the great gold chain he had been used 
to wear, to pay soldiers in his cause, and now, when that cause 
was lost and hopeless) did not conclude the treaty until he had 
safely departed out of the Scottish dominions. He and his 
beautiful wife, who was faithful to him under all reverses, and 
left her state and home to follow his poor fortunes, were put 
aboard ship with everything necessary for their comfort and pro 
taction, and sailed for Ireland. 

But the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit Earls of 
Warwick and Dukes of York for one while, and would give th/3 



214 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OP Ei^GLANB, 

White Rose no aid. So the White Rose — encircled by thorfiS 
indeed — resolved to go with his beautiful wife to Cornwall as a 
forlorn resource, and see what might be made of the Cornish 
men, who had risen so valiantly a little while before, and who 
had fought so bravely at Deptford Bridge. 

To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly, came Perkin 
Warbeck and his wife ; and the lovely lady he shut up for safety 
in the castle of St. Michael's Mount, and then marched into 
Devonshire at the head of three thousand Cornish men. These 
were increased to six thousand by the time of his arrival in 
Exeter ; but there the people made a stout resistance, and he 
went on to Taunton, where he came in sight of the king's army. 
The stout Cornish men, although they were few in number, and 
badly armed, were so bold, that they never thought of retreat- 
ing, but bravely looked forward to a battle on the morrow. Un» 
happily for them, the man who was possessed of so many en- 
gaging qualities, and who attracted so many people to his side 
when he had nothing else with which to tempt them, was not as 
brave as they. In the night, when the two armies lay opposite 
to each other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When morn- 
ing dawned, the poor confiding Cornish men, discovering that 
they had no leader, surrendered to the king's power. Some of 
them were hanged, and the rest were pardoned, and went 
miserably home. 

Before the king pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of 
Beaulieu in the New Forest, where it was soon known that he 
had taken refuge, he sent a body of horsemen to St. Michael's 
Mount to seize his wife. She was soon taken, and brought as 
a captive before the king. But she was so beautiful and so 
good, and so devoted to the man in whom she believed, that 
the king regarded her with compassion, treated her with great 
respect, and placed her at court, near the queen's person. And 
many years after Perkin Warbeck was no more, and when his 
strange story had become like a nursery tale, she was called the 
White Rose, by the people, in remembrance of her beauty. 

The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the 
king's men ; and the king, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, 
sent pretended friends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade him to 
come out and surrender himself. This he soon did ; the king 
having taken a good look at the man of whom he had heard so 
much, from behind a screen, directed him to be well mounted, 
and to ride behind him at a little distance, guarded, but not 
bound in any way. So they entered London with the king's 
favorite show, — a procession ; and some of the people hooted 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH. 



21S 



as the Pretender rode slowly through the streets to the Tower, 
but the greater part were quiet, and very curious to see him. 
From the Tower he was taken to the palace at Westminster, 
and there lodged like a gentleman, though closely watched. He 
\vas examined every now and then as to his imposture ; but 
the king was so secret in all he did, that even then he gave it 
a consequence which it cannot be supposed to have in itself 
deserved. 

At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in an- 
other sanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he was 
again persuaded to deliver himself up ; and, being conveyed 
to London, he stood in the stocks for a whole day, outside 
Westminster Hall, and there read a paper purporting to be his 
full confession, and relating his history as the king's agents had 
originally described it. He was then shut up in the Tower 
again, in the company of the Earl of Warwick, who had now 
been there for fourteen years, — ever since his removal out of 
Yorkshire, except when the king had had him at court, and had 
shown him to the people, to prove the imposture of the baker's 
boy. It is but too probable, when we consider the crafty char- 
acter of Henry the Seventh, that these two were brought to- 
gether for a cruel purpose. A plot was soon discovered be- 
tween them and the keepers, to murder the governor, get pos- 
session of the keys, and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as King 
Richard the Fourth. That' there was some such plot is likely ; 
that they were tempted into it is at least as likely ; that the 
unfortunate Earl of Warwick — last male of the Plantagenet 
line — -was too unused to the world, and too ignorant and simple 
to know much about it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain ; 
and that it was the king's interest to get rid of him is no less 
so. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck 
was hanged at Tyburn. 

Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose 
shadowy history was made more shadowy, and ever will be, by 
the mystery and craft of the king. If he had turned his great 
natural advantages to a more honest account, he might have 
lived a happy and respected life, even in those days ; but he 
died upon a gallows at Tyburn, leaving the Scottish lady, who 
had loved him so well, kindly protected at the queen's court. 
After some time she forgot her old loves and troubles, as many 
people do with Time's merciful assistance, and married a 
Welsh gentleman. Her second husband. Sir Matthew Cradoc, 
more honest and more happy than her first, lies beside her in 
a tomb in the old church of Swansea. 



gi6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

The ill blood between France and England, in this reign, 
arose out of the continued plotting of the Duchess of Bun- 
gundy, and disputes respecting the affairs of Brittany. The 
king feigned to be very patriotic, indignant, and warlike ; but 
he always contrived so as never to make war in reality, and al- 
ways to make money. His taxation of the people, on pretence 
of war with France, involved at one time a very dangerous in- 
surrection, headed by Sir John Egremont, and a common man 
called John a Chambre. But it was subdued by the royal 
forces, under the command of the Earl of Surrey. The 
knighted John escaped to the Duchess of Burgundy, who was 
ever ready to receive any one who gave the king trouble ; and 
the plain John was hanged at York, in the midst of a number 
of his men, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater 
traitor. Hung high or hung low, however, hanging is much 
the same to the person hung. 

Within a year after her marriage, the queen had given birth 
to a son, v/ho was called Prince Arthur, in remembrance of the 
old British prince of romance and story; and who, when all 
these events had happened, being then in his fifteenth year, 
was married to Catherine, the daughter of the Spanish mon- 
arch, with great rejoicings and bright prospects ; but in a very 
few months he sickened and died. As soon as the king had 
recovered from his grief, he thought it a pity that the fortune 
of the Spanish princess, amounting to two hundred thousand 
crowns, should go out of the family ; and therefore arranged 
that the young widow should marry his second son, Henry, 
then twelve years of age, when he too should be fifteen. There 
were objections to this marriage on the part of the clergy ; but 
as the infallible pope was gained over, and as he must be right, 
that settled the business for the time. The king's eldest 
daughter was provided for, and a long course of disturbance 
was considered to be set at rest, by her being married to the 
Scottish king. 

And now the queen died. When the king had got over 
that grief too, his mind once more reverted to his darling 
money for consolation, and he thought of marrying the Dowa- 
ger Queen of Naples, who was immensely rich ; but as it turned 
out not to be practicable to gain the money, however practica- 
ble it might have been to gain the lady, he gave up the idea. 
He was not so fond of her but that he soon proposed to marry 
the Dowager Duchess of Savoy ; and, soon afterwards, the 
widow of the King of Castile, who was raving mad. But he 
made a money-bargain instead, and married neither. 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE SEVENTH. 217 

The Duchess of Burgundy, among the other discontented 
people to whom she had given refuge, had shehered Edmund 
de la Pole (younger brother of that Earl of Lincoln who was 
killed at Stoke), now Earl of Suffolk. The king had pre- 
vailed upon him to return to the marriage of Prince Arthur \ 
but he soon afterwards went away again ; and then the king, 
suspecting a conspiracy, resorted to his favorite plan of send- 
ing him some treacherous friends, and buying of those scoun- 
drels the secrets they disclosed or invented. Some arrests and 
executions took place in consequence. In the end, the king, 
on a promise of not taking his life, obtained possession of the 
person of Edmund de la Pole, and shut him up in the Tower. 

This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he 
would have made many more among the people, by the grind- 
ing exaction to which he constantly exposed them, and by the 
tyrannical acts of his two prime favorites in all money-raising 
matters, Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson. But Death — 
the enemy who is not to be bought off or deceived, and on 
whom no money and no treachery has any effect — presented 
himself at this juncture, and ended the king's reign. He died 
of the gout, on the 22d of April, 1509, and in the fifty-third 
year of his age, after reigning twenty-four years. He was 
buried in the beautiful chapel of Westminster Abbey, which he 
had himself founded, and which still bears his name. 

It was in this reign that the great Christopher Columbus, 
on behalf of Spain, discovered what was then called the New 
World. Great wonder, interest and hope of wealth being 
awakened in England thereby, the kmg and the merchants of 
London and Bristol fitted out an English expedition for further 
discoveries in the New World, and intrusted it to Sebastian 
Cabot of Bristol, the son of a Venetian pilot there. He was 
very successful in his voyage, and gained high reputation, both 
for himself and England. 



f l8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGL Am), 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

kngland under henry the eighth, called bluff kimg 

hal, and burly king harry. 

Part the First. 

We now come to King Henry the Eighth, whom it has been 
too much the fashion to call " Bluff King Hal," and " Burly 
King Harry," and other fine names ; but whom I shall take 
the liberty to call plainly one of the most detestable villains 
that ever drew breath. You will be able to judge, long before 
we come to the end of his life, whether he deserves the char- 
acter. 

He was just eighteeii years of age when he came to the 
throne. People said he was handsome then ; but I don't be- 
lieve it. He was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, 
double-chinned, swinish-looking fellow, in later life (as we know 
from the likenesses of him, painted by the famous Hans Hol- 
bein), and it is not easy to believe that so bad a character can 
ever have been veiled under a prepossessing appearance. 

He was anxious to make himself popular ; and the people, 
who had long disliked the late king, were very willing to be- 
lieve that he deserved to be so. He was extremely fond of 
show and display, and so were they. Therefore there was 
great rejoicing when he married the Princess Catherine, and 
when they were both crowned. And the king fought at tour- 
naments, and always came off victorious, — for the courtiers took 
care of that ; and there was a general outcry that he was a 
wonderful man. Empson, Dudley, and their supporters were 
accused of a variety of crimes they had never committed, in- 
stead of the offences of which they really had been guilty ; and 
they were pilloried, and set upon horses with their faces to the 
tails, and knocked about and beheaded, to the satisfaction of 
the people, and the enrichment of the king. 

The pope, so indefatigable in getting the world into trouble, 
had mixed himself up in a war on the Continent of Europe, oc- 
casioned by the reigning princes of little quarrelling states in 
Italy having at various times married into 'other royal families, 
and so led to their claiming a share in those petty govern- 
mt nts. The king, who discovered that he was very fond ©f th© 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH, 



219 



pope, sent a herald to the King of France to say, that he must 
not make war upon that holy personage, because he was the 
father of all Christians. As the French king did not mind this 
relationship in the least, and also refused to admit a claim 
King Henry made to certain lands in France, war was declared 
between the two countries. Not to perplex this story with an 
account of the tricks and designs of all the sovereigns who 
were engaged in it, it is enough to say that England made a 
blundering alliance with Spain, and got stupidly taken in by 
that country, which made its own terms with France when it 
it could, and left England in the lurch. Sir Edward Howard, 
a bold admiral, son of the Earl of Surrey, distinguished himself 
by his bravery against the French in this business ; but unfor- 
tunately he was more brave than wise, for, skimming into the 
French harbor of Brest with only a few row-boats, he attempted 
(in revenge for the defeat and death of Sir Thomas Knyvett, 
another bold English admiral) to take some strong French 
ships, well defended with batteries of cannon. The upshot was, 
that he was left on board of one of them (in consequence of its 
shooting away from his own boat), with not more than about a 
dozen men, and was thrown into the sea and drowned, — though 
not until he had taken from his breast his gold chain and gold 
whistle, which were the signs of his office, and had cast them 
into the sea to prevent their being made a boast of by the en- 
emy. After this defeat, — which was a great one, for Sir Ed- 
ward Howard was a man of valor and fame, — the king took it 
into his head to invade France in person ; first executing that 
dangerous Earl of Suffolk, whom his father had left in the 
Tower, and appointing Queen Catharine to the charge of his 
kingdom in his absence. He sailed to Calais, where he was 
joined by Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, who pretended to 
be his soldier, and who took pay in his service, — with a good 
deal of nonsense of that sort, flattering enough to the vanity of 
a vain blusterer. The king might be successful enough in 
sham fights ; but his idea of real battles chiefly consisted in 
pitching silken tents of bright colors, that were ignominiously 
blown down by the wind, and in making a vast display of gaudy 
flags and golden curtains. Fortune, however, favored him bet 
ter than he deserved ; for after much waste of time in tent- 
pitching, flag-flying, gold-curtaining, and other such masquer- 
ading, he gave the French battle at a place called Guinegate \ 
where they took such an unaccountable panic, and fled with 
such swiftness, that it was ever afterwards called by the Eng- 
lish the Battle of Spurs. Instead of following up his advan- 
10 



425 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

tage, the king, finding that he had had enough of real fighting, 
came home again. 

The Scottish king, though nearly related to Henry by mar- 
riage, had taken part against him in this war. The Earl of 
Surrey, as the English general, advanced to meet him when he 
came out of his own dominions, and crossed the river Tweed. 
The two armies came up with one another when the Scottish 
king had also crossed the river Till, and was encamped upon 
the last of the Cheviot Hills, called the Hill of Flodden. 
Along the plain below it, the English, when the hour of battle 
came, advanced. The Scottish army, which had been drawn 
up in five great bodies, then came steadily down in perfect si- 
lence. So they, in their turn, advanced to meet the English 
army, which came on in one long line ; and they attacked it 
with a body of spearmen, under Lord Home. At first they 
had the best of it , but the English recovered themselves so 
bravely, and fought with such valor, that, when the Scottish 
king had almost made his way up to the royal standard, he was 
slain, and the whole Scottish power routed. Ten thousand 
Scottish men lay dead that day on Flodden Field ; and among 
them numbers of the nobility and gentry. For a long time af- 
terwards, the Scottish peasantry used to believe that their king 
had not been really killed in this battle, because no English- 
man had found an iron belt he wore about his body as a pen- 
ance for having been an unnatural and undutiful son. But 
whatever became of his belt, the English had his sword and 
dagger, and the ring from his finger, and his body too, covered 
with wounds. There is no doubt of it ; for it was seen and 
recognized by English gentlemen who had known the Scottish 
king well. 

When King Henry was making ready to renew the war in 
France, the French king was contemplating peace. His queen 
dying at this time, he proposed, though he was upwards of fifty 
years old, to marry King Henry's sister, the Princess Mary, 
who, besides being only sixteen, was betrothed to the Duke o^ 
Suffolk. As the inclinations of young princesses were not 
much considered in such matters, the marriage was concluded, 
and the poor girl was escorted to France, where she was imme^ 
diately left as the French king's bride, with only one of all her 
English attendants. That one was a pretty young girl name(J 
Anne Boleyn, niece of the Earl of Surrey, who had been made 
Duke of Norfolk, after the victory of Flodden Field. Anne 
Boleyn's is a name to be remembered, as you will presently 
find. 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. aai 

And now the French king, who was very proud of his young 
', ife, was preparing for many years of happiness, and she was 
K K)king forward, I daresay, to many years of misery, when he 
d^ed within three months, and left her a young widow. The 
new French monarch, Francis the First, seeing how important 
it was to his interests that she should take for her second hus- 
band no one but an Englishman, advised her first lover, the 
Duke of Suffolk, when King Henry sent him over to France to 
fetch her home, to marry her. The princess being herself so 
fond of that duke as to tell him that he must either do so then, 
or forever lose her, they were wedded ; and Henry afterwards 
forgave them. In making interest with the king, the Duke of 
Suffolk had addressed his most powerful favorite and adviser, 
Thomas Wolsey, — a name very famous in history for its rise 
and downfall. 

Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher at Ipswich, in 
Suffolk, and received so excellent an education that he became 
a tutor to the family of the Marquis of Dorset, who afterwards 
got him. appointed one of the late king's chaplains. On the 
accession of Henry the Eighth, he was promoted, and taken 
into great favor. He was now Archbishop of York j the pope 
had made him a cardinal besides ; and whoever wanted influ- 
ence in England, or favor with the king, — whether he were a 
foreign monarch or an English nobleman, — was obliged to make 
a friend of the great Cardinal Wolsey. 

He was a gay man, who could dance and jest and sing and 
drink ; and those were the roads to so much, or rather so little, 
of a heart as King Henry had. He was wonderfully fond of 
pomp and glitter ; and so was the king. He knew a good deal 
of the church learning of that time ; much of which consisted in 
finding artful excuses and pretences for almost any wrong thing, 
and in arguing that black was white, or any other color. This 
kind of learning pleased the king too. For many such reasons, 
the cardinal was high in estimation with the king ; and, being 
a man of far greater ability, knew as well how to manage him, 
as a clever keeper may know to manage a wolf or a tiger, or 
any other cruel and uncertain beast, that may turn upon him and 
tear him any day. Never had there been seen in England such 
state as my lord cardinal kept. His wealth was enormous ; 
equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the crown. His palaces 
were as splendid as the king's, and his retinue was eight hun- 
dred strong. He held his court, dressed out from top to toe in 
flaming scarlet j and his very shoes were golden, set with 
precious stones. His followers rode on blood horses ;. while he, 



222 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

with a wonderful affection of humility in the midst of his great 
splendor, ambled on a mule with a red velvet saddle and bridle 
and golden stirrups. 

Through the influence of this stately priest, a grand meeting 
was arranged to take place between the French and English 
kings in France, but on ground belonging to England. A pro- 
digious show of friendship and rejoicing was to be made on the 
occasion ; and heralds were sent to proclaim with brazen trum- 
pets through all the principal cities of Europe, that, on a certain 
day, the kings of France and England, as companions and 
brothers in arms, each attended by eighteen followers, would 
hold^a tournament against all knights who might choose to come. 

Charles, the new Emperor of Germany (the old one being 
dead), wanted to prevent too cordial an alliance between these 
sovereigns, and came over to England before the king could 
repair to the place of meeting ; and, besides making an agree- 
able impression upon him, secured Wolsey's interest by promis- 
ing that his influence should make him pope, when the next 
vacancy occurred. On the day when the emperor left England, 
the king and all the court went over to Calais, and thence to the 
place of meeting, between Ardres and Guisnes, commonly called 
the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here all manner of expense 
and prodigality was lavished on the decorations of the show , 
many of the knights and gentlemen being so superbly dressed 
that it was said they carried their whole estates upon their 
shoulders. 

There were sham castles, temporary chapels, fountains run- 
ning wine, great cellars full of wine free as water to all comers, 
silk tents, gold lace and foil, gilt lions, and such things without 
end ; and, in the midst of all, the rich cardinal out-shone and 
out-glittered all the noblemen and gentlemen assembled. After 
a treaty made between the two kings, with as much solemnity as 
if they had intended to keep it, the lists, nine hundred feet long 
and three hundred and twenty broad, were opened for the 
tournament ; the Queens of France and England looking on 
with great array of lords and ladies. Then for ten days the two 
sovereigns fought five combats every day, and always beat their 
polite adversaries ; though they do write that the King of Eng- 
land, being thrown in a wrestle one day by the King of France, 
lost his kingly temper with his brother in arms, and wanted to 
make a quarrel of it. Then there is a great story belonging to 
this Field of the Cloth of Gold, showing how the English were 
distrustful of the French, and the French of the English, until 
Francis rode alone one morning to Henry's tent- and, going ip 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. 223 

before he was out of bed, told him in joke that he was his pris- 
oner ; and how Henry jumped out of bed and embraced Francis, 
and how Francis helped Henry to dress and warmed his linen 
for him ; and how Henry gave Francis a splendid jewelled col- 
lar, and how Francis gave Henry, in return, a costly bracelet. 
All this and a great deal more was so written about, and sung 
about, and talked about at that time (and, indeed, since that 
time too), that the world has had good cause to be sick of it 
forever. 

Of course, nothing came of all these fine doings but a speedy 
renewal of the war between England and France, in which the 
two royal companions and brothers in arms longed very earnestly 
to damage one another. But, before it broke out again, the 
Duke of Buckingham was shamefully executed on Tower Hill, 
on the evidence of a discharged servant, — really for nothing, 
except the folly of having beheved in a friar of the name of 
Hopkins, who had pretended to be a prophet, and who had 
mumbled and jumbled out some nonsense about the duke's son 
being destined to be very great in the land. It was believed 
that the unfortunate duke had given offence to the great car- 
dinal by expressing his mind freely about the expense and 
absurdity of the whole business of the Field of the Cloth of 
Gold, At any rate, he was beheaded, as I have said, for noth- 
ing. And the people who saw it done were very angry, and cried 
out that it was the work of " the butcher's son 1 '^ 

The new war was a short one, though the Earl of Surrey in- 
vaded France again, and did some injury to that country. It 
ended in another treaty of peace between the two kingdoms, and 
in the discovery that the Emperor of Germany was not such a 
good friend to England in reality as he pretended to be. 
Neither did he keep his promise to Wolsey to make him pope, 
though the king urged him. Two popes died in pretty quick 
succession ; but the foreign priests were too much for the car- 
dinal, and kept him out of the post. So the cardinal and king 
together found out that the Emperor of Germany was not a man 
to keep faith with ; broke off a projected marriage between the 
king's daughter Mary, Princess of Wales, and that sovereign, 
and began to consider whether it might not be well to marry 
the young lady either to Francis himself, or to his eldest son. 

There now arose at Wittemberg, in Germany, the great 
leader of the mighty change in England which is called The 
Reformation, and which set the people free from their slavery 
to the priests. This was a learned doctor, named Martin 
Luther, who knew all about them; for he had been a priest, and 



«24 



A CHlLtyS HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



even a monk, himself. The preaching and writing of Wickliffe 
had set a number of men thinking on this subject ; and Luthef 
finding one day to his great surprise, that there really was 3 
book called the New Testament which the priests did not allo\^ 
to be read, and wnich contained truths that they suppressed 
began to be very vigorous against the whole body, from the 
pope downward. It happened, while he was yet only beginning 
his vast work of awakening the nation, that an impudent fellow 
named Tetzel, a friar of very bad character, came into his neigh- 
borhood selling what were called indulgences, by wholesale, to 
I aise money for beautifying the great Cathedral of St. Peter's at 
Rome. Whoev^er bought an indulgence of the pope was sup- 
posed to buy himself off irom the punishment of Heaven for his 
offences. Luther told the people that these indulgences were 
worthless bits of paper before God, and that Tetzel and his 
masters were a crew of impostors in selling them. 

The king and the cardinal were mightily indignant at this 
presumption , and the king (with the help of Sir Thomas More, 
a wise man, whom he afterwards repaid by striking off his head) 
even wrote a book about it, with which the pope was so well 
pleased, that he gave the king the title of Defender of the Faith. 
The king and the cardinal also issued flaming warnings to the 
people not t*j read Luther's books, on pain of excommunication. 
But they did read them for all that ; and the rumor of what was 
in them spread far and wide. 

When this great change was thus going on, the king began 
to show himself in his truest and worst colors. Anne Boleyn, 
the pretty little 'x\ who had gone abroad to France with his 
sister, was by this time grown up to be very beautiful, and was 
one of the ladies in attendance on Queen Catherine. Now 
Queen Catherine was no longer young or handsome, and it is 
likely that she was not particularly good tempered , having been 
always rather melancholy, and having been made more so by 
the deaths of for.r of her children, when they were very young. 
So the king fell i;i love with the fair Anne Boleyn, and said to 
himself, " How can I be best rid of my own troublesome wife 
whom I am tired of, and marry Anne t " 

\oM recollect that Queen Catherine had been the wife ot 
Henry's brother. What does the king do, after thinking it over, 
but calls his favorite priests about him, and says, O, his mind 
is in such a dreadful state, and he is so frightfully uneasy, be- 
cause he is afraid it was not lawful for him to marry the queen ! 
Not one of those priests had the courage to hint that it was 
f^lther curious he had never thought of th^t before, and that his 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. 



22S 



mind seemed to have been in a tolerably jolly condition during 
a great many years, in which he certainly had not fretted him 
self thhi ; but they all said, Ah ! that was very true, and it was 
a serious business ; and perhaps the best way to make it right, 
would be for his Majesty to be divorced ! The king replied, 
Yes ; he thought that would be the best way certainly ; so they 
all went to work. 

If I were to relate to you the intrigues and plots that took 
place in the endeavor to get this divorce, you would think the 
History of England the most tiresome book in the world. So 
I shall say no more than, that, after a vast deal of negotiation 
and evasion, the pope issued a commission to Cardinal Wolsey 
and Cardinal Campeggio (whom he sent over from Italy for the 
purpose) to try the whole case in England. It is supposed — and 
I think with reason — that Wolsey was the queen's enemy, be- 
cause she had reproved him for his proud and gorgeous manner 
of life. But he did not at first know that the king wanted to 
marry Anne Boleyn ; and, when he did know it, he even went 
down on his knees, in the endeavor to dissuade him. 

The cardinals opened their court in the Convent of th^ 
Black Friars, near to where the bridge of that name in London 
now stands ; and the king and queen, that they might be near it, 
took up their lodgings at the adjoining Palace of Bridewell, ot 
which nothing now remains but a bad prison, On the opening 
of the court, when the king and queen were called on to appear, 
that poor ill-used lady with a dignity and firmness, and yet with a 
womanly affection worthy to be always admired, went and 
kneeled at the king's teet, and said that she had come a stran- 
ger to his dominions ; that she had been a good and true wif* 
to him for twenty years ; and that she could acknowledge wq 
power in those cardinals to try whether she should be consid- 
ered his wife after all that time, or should be put away. Witb 
that she got up and left the court, and would never afterward j 
come back to it. 

The king pretended to be very much overcome, and said, O 
my lords and gentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure, 
and how delighted he would be to live with her unto death, but 
for that terrible uneasiness in his mind which was quite wearing 
him away ! So the case went on, and there was nothing but 
talk for two months. Then Cardinal Campeggio, who, on be- 
half of the pope, wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned 
it for two more months ; and, before that time was elapsed, the 
pope himself adjourned it indefinitely, by requiring the king and 
queen to come to Rome and have it tried there. But, by good 



826 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

luck for the king, word was brought to him by some of his 
people, that they had happened to meet at supper Thomas 
Cranmer, a learned doctor of Cambridge, who had proposed to 
urge the pope on, by referring the case to all the learned doc- 
tors and bishops, here and there and everywhere, and getting 
their opinions that the king's marriage was unlawful. The 
king, who was now in a hurry to marry Anne Boleyn, thought 
this such a good idea, that he sent for Cranmer, post-haste, and 
said to Lord Rochfort, Anne Boleyn's father, " Take this learned 
doctor down to your country-house, and there let him have a 
good room for a study, and no end of books out of which to 
prove that I may marry your daughter," Lord Rochfort, not 
at all reluctant, made the learned doctor as comfortable as he 
could ; and the learned doctor went to work to prove his case. 
All this time, the king and Anne Boleyn were writing letters to 
one another almost daily, full of impatience to have the case 
settled ; and Anne Boleyn was showing herself (as I think) very 
worthy of the fate which afterwards befell her. 

It was bad for Cardinal Wolsey that he had left Cranmer to 
render this help. It was worse for him that he had tried to 
dissuade the king from marrying Anne Boleyn. Such a servant 
as he, to such a master as Henry, would' probably have fallen 
in any case ; but between the hatred of the party of the queen 
that was, and the hatred of the party of the queen that was to 
be, he fell suddenly and heavily. Going down one day to the 
court of chancery, where he now presided, he was waited upon 
by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, who told him that they 
brought an order to him to resign that office, and to withdraw 
quietly to a house he had at Esher, in Surrey, The cardinal 
refusing, they rode off to the king ; and next day came back 
with a letter from him, on reading which the cardinal submitted. 
An inventory was made out of all the riches in his palace at 
York Place (now Whitehall), and he went sorrowfully up the 
river in his barge to Putney. An abject man he was, in spite 
of his pride ; for being overtaken, riding out of that place to- 
wards Esher, by one of the king's chamberlains who brought 
him a kind message and a ring, he alighted from his mule, took 
off his cap, and kneeled down in the dirt. His poor fool, whom 
in his prosperous days he had always kept in his palace to en- 
tertain him, cut a far better figure than he ; for when the car 
dinal said to the chamberlain that he had nothing to send to 
his lord the king as a present but that jester, who was a most 
excellent one, it took six strong yeomen to remove the faithful 
fool from his master. 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. 227 

The once proud cardinal was soon further disgraced, and 
wrote the most abject letters to his vile sovereign, who hum- 
bled him one day and encouraged him the next, according to 
his humor, until he was at last ordered to go and reside in his 
diocese of York. He said he was too poor ; but I don't know 
how he made that out ; for he took a hundred and sixty ser- 
\ants with him, and seventy-two cart-loads of furniture, food, 
and wine. He remained in that part of the country for th* 
best part of a year, and showed himself so improved by his mis' 
fortunes, and was so mild and so conciliating, that he won all 
hearts. And indeed, even in his proud days, he had done 
some magnificent things for learning and education. At last 
he was arrested for high treason ; and, coming slowly on his 
journey towards London, got as far as Leicester. Arriving at 
Leicester Abbey after dark, and very ill, he said — when the 
monks came out at the gate with lighted torches to receive him 
— that he had come to lay his bones among them. He had in- 
deed ; for he was taken to a bed, from which he never rose 
again. His last words were, " Had I but served God as 
diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given 
me over in my gray hairs. Howbeit, this is my just reward for 
my pains and diligence, not regarding my service to God, but 
only my duty to my prince." The news of his death was quickly 
carried to the king, who was amusing himself with archery in 
the garden of the magnificent palace at Hampton Court, which 
that very Wolsey had presented to him. The greatest emotion 
his royal mind displayed at the loss of a servant, so faithful and 
so ruined, was a particular desire to lay hold of fifteen hundred 
pounds which the cardinal was reported to have hidden some^ 
where. 

The opinions concerning the divorce, of the learned doctors 
and bishops and others, being at last collected, and being gen- 
erally in the king's favor, were forwarded to the pope, with an 
entreaty that he would now grant it. The unfortunate pope, 
who was a timid man, was half distracted between his fear of 
his authority being set aside in England if he did not do as he 
was asked, and his dread of offending the Emperor of Germany, 
who was Queen Catherine's nephew. In this state of mind he 
still evaded, and did nothing. Then Thomas Cromwell, who 
had been one of Wolsey's faithful attendants, and had remained 
so even in his decline, advised the king to take the matter into 
his own hands, and make himself the head of the whole Church. 
This the king, by various artful means, began to do \ but he 
recompensed the clerev hy allow:Jig them to burn as many 



228 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAN^D, 

people as they pleased for holding Luther's opinions. You 
must understand that Sir Thomas More, the wise man who had 
helped the king with his book, had been made chancellor in 
Wolsey's place. But, as he was truly attached to the Church 
as it was, even in its abuses, he, in this state of things, resigned. 

Being now quite resolved to get rid of Queen Catherine, and 
to marry Anne Boleyn without more ado, the king made Cran- 
mer Archbishop of Canterbury, and directed Queen Catherine 
to leave the court. She obeyed ; but replied that, wherever she 
went, she was Queen of England still, and would remain so to 
the last. The king then married Anne Boleyn privately ; and 
the new Archbishop of Canterbury, within half a year, declared 
his marriage with Queen Catherine void, and crowned Anne 
Boleyn queen. 

She might have known that no good could ever come from 
such wrong, and that the corpulent brute who„had been so faith- 
less and so cruel to his first wife could be more faithless and 
more cruel to his second. She might have known, that, even 
when he was in love with her, he had been a mean and selfish 
coward, running away, like a frightened cur, from her society 
and her house, when a dangerous sickness broke out in it, and 
when she might easily have taken it and died, as several of the 
household did. But Anne Boleyn arrived at all this knowledge 
too late, and bought it at a dear price. Her bad marriage with 
a worse man came to its natural end. Its natural end was not, 
as we shall too soon see, a natural death for her. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

england under henry the eighth 

Part the Second. 

The pope was thrown into a very angry state of mind when 
he heard of the king's marriage, and fumed exceedingly. Many 
of the English monks and friars, seeing that their order w^as in 
danger, did the same ; some even declaimed against the king 
in church, before his face, and were not to be stopped until he 
himself roared out, *' Silence ! " The king, not much the worse 
for this, took it pretty quietly ; and was very glad when hif 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. 229 

queen gave birth to a daughter, who was christened Elizabeth, 
and declared Princess of Wales, as her sister Mary had already 
been. 

One of the most atrocious features of this reign was that 
Henry the Eighth was always trimming between the reformed 
religion and the unreformed one ; so that the more he quarrelled 
with the pope, the more of his own subjects he roasted alive 
for not holding the pope's opinion. Thus, an unfortunate stu- 
dent named John Frith, and a poor simple tailor named Andrew 
Hewet, who loved him very much, and said that whatever John 
Frith believed he believed, were burnt in Smithfield, — to show 
what a capital Christian the king was. 

But these were speedily followed by two much greater vic- 
tims, Sir Thomas More, and John Fisher, the Bishop of Roches- 
ter. The latter, who was a good and amiable old man, had 
committed no greater offence than believing in Elizabeth Bar- 
ton, called the Maid of Kent, — another of those ridiculous 
women who pretended to be inspired, and to make all sorts of 
heavenly revelations, though they indeed uttered nothing but 
evil nonsense. For this offence — as it was pretended, but 
really for denying the king to be the supreme head of the 
Church — he got into trouble, and was put in prison ; but, even 
then, he might have been suffered to die naturally (short work 
having been made of executing the Kentish Maid and her prin- 
cipal followers), but that the pope, to spite the king, resolved 
to make him a cardinal. Upon that the king made a ferocious 
joke to the effect that the pope might send Fisher a red hat 
(which is the way they make a cardinal), but he should have no 
head on which to wear.it ; and he was tried with all unfairness 
and injustice, and sentenced to death. He died like a noble 
and virtuous old man, and left a worthy name behind him. The 
king supposed, I daresay, that Sir Thomas More would be 
frightened by this example ; but as he was not easily terrified, 
and, thoroughly believing in the pope, had made up his mind 
that the king was not the rightful head of the Church, he posi- 
tively refused to say that he was. For this crime, he too, was 
tried and sentenced, after having been in prison a whole year. 
When he was doomed to death, and came away from his trial 
with the edge of the executioner's axe turned towards him, — as 
was always done in those times when a state prisoner came to 
that hopeless pass, — he bore it quite serenely, and gave his 
blessing to his son, who pressed through the crowd in West- 
minster Hall, and kneeled down to receive it. But when he got 
Xo th^ Tower wharf, on his way back to his prison, and his 



»3o 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



favorite daughter, Margaret Roper, a very good woman, rushed 
through the guards again and again to kiss him, and to weep 
upon his neck, he was overcome at last. He soon recovered, 
ar.d never more showed any feeling but cheerfulness and cour- 
age. When he was going up the steps of the scaffold to his 
death, he said jokingly to the lieutenant of the Tower, observ 
ing that they were weak and shook beneath his tread, " I pray 
you. Master Lieutenant, see me safe up ; and, for my coming 
down, I can shift for myself." Also he said to the executioner, 
after he had laid his head upon the block, " Let me put my 
beard out of the way j for that, at least, has never committed 
any treason." Then his head was struck off at a blow. These 
two executions were worthy of King Henry the Eighth. Sir 
Thomas More was one of the most virtuous men in his domin- 
ions, and the bishop was one of his oldest and truest friends. 
But to be a friend of that fellow was almost as dangerous as to 
be his wife. 

When the news of these two murders got to Rome, the pope 
raged against the murderer more than ever pope raged since 
the world began, and prepared a bull, ordering his subjects to 
take arms against him and dethrone him. The king took all 
possible precautions to keep that document out of his domin- 
ions, and set to work in return to suppress a great number of 
the English monasteries and abbeys. 

This destruction was begun by a body of commissioners, of 
whom Cromwell (whom the king had taken into great favorj 
was the head ; and was carried on through some few years to 
its entire completion. There is no doubt that many of these 
religious establishments were religious in nothing but in name, 
and were crammed with lazy, indolent, and sensual monks. 
There is no doubt that they imposed upon the people in every 
possible way; that they had images moved by wires, which they 
pretended were miraculously moved by Heaven ; that they had 
among them a whole tun-measure full of teeth, all purporting to 
have come out of the head of one saint, who must indeed have 
been a very extraordinary person with that enormous allowance 
of grinders; that they had bits of coal which they said had 
fried St. Lawrence, and bits of toe-nails which they said be- 
longed to other famous saints, penknives and boots and girdles 
which they said belonged to others ; and that all these bits of 
rubbish were called relics, and adored by the ignorant people. 
But, on the other hand, there is no doubt, either, that the 
king's officers and men punished the good monks with the bad ; 
did great injustice ; demolished many beautiful things and 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE ETGHTH. 



231 



many valuable libraries ; destroyed numbers of paintings, stained- 
glass windows, fine pavements, and carvings ; and that the 
whole court were ravenously greedy and rapacious for the divi- 
sion of this great spoil among them. The king seems to have 
grown almost mad in the ardor of this pursuit ; for he declared 
Thomas ^ Becket a traitor, though he had been dead so many 
years, and had his body dug up out of his grave. He must 
have been as miraculous as the monks pretended, if they had 
told the truth ; for he was found with one head on his shoulders, 
and they had shown another as his undoubted and genuine 
head ever since his death ; it had brought them vast sums of 
money too. The gold and jewels on his shrine filled two great 
chests, and eight men tottered as they carried them away. How 
rich the monasteries were you may infer from the fact, that, 
when they were all suppressed, one hundred and thirty thousand 
pounds a year — in those days an immense sum — came to the 
crown. 

These things were not done without causing great discon^ 
tent among the people. The monks had been good landlords 
and hospitable entertainers of all travellers, and had been ac- 
customed to give away a great deal of corn and fruit and meat 
and other things. In those days it was difficult to change goods 
into money, in consequence of the roads being very few and 
very bad, and the carts and wagons of the worst description ; 
and they must either have given away some of the good things 
they possessed in enormous quantities, or have suffered them 
to spoil and moulder. So, many of the people missed what it 
was more agreeable to get idly than to work for ; and the 
monks, who were driven out of their homes and wandered 
about, encouraged their discontent, and there were, conse- 
quently, great risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. These 
were put down by terrific executions, from which the monks 
themselves did not escape ; and the king went on grunting and 
growling in his own fat way, like a royal pig. 

I have told this story of the religious houses at one time, to 
make it plainer, and to get back to the king's domestic affairs. 

The unfortunate Queen Catherine was by this time dead \ 
and the king was by this time as tired of his second queen as he 
had been of his first. As he had fallen in love with Anne when 
she was in the service of Catherine, so he now fell in lo^^e with 
another lady in the service of Anne. See how wicker^ deeds 
are punished, and how bitterly and self-reproachtully the <^Meen 
must now have thought of her own rise to the throne ! ^lie 
iiew fancy was a Lady Jane Seymour i an4 the king no so^^^l 



232 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAN-G. 

set his mind on her, than he resolved to have Anne Boleyn*a 
head. So he brought a number of charges against Anne, ac« 
cusing her of dreadful crimes which she had never committed. - 
and implicating in them her own brother and certain gentlemen 
in her service, among whom one Norris, and Mark Smeaton, 
are best remembered. As the lords and councillors were as 
afraid of the king and as subservient to him as the meanest 
peasant in England was, they brought in Anne Boleyn guiltyj 
and the other unfortunate persons accused with her, guilty too 
Those gentlemen died like men, with the exception of Smeaton, 
who had been tempted by the king into telling lies, which he 
called confessions, and who had expected to be pardoned ; but 
who, I am very glad to say, was not. There was then only the 
queen to dispose of. She had been surrounded in the Tower 
with women spies, had been monstrously persecuted and foully 
slandered, and had received no justice. But her spirit rose 
with her afflictions ; and after having in vain tried to soften the 
king by writing an affecting letter to him which still exists, 
" from her doleful prison in the Tower," she resigned herself to 
death. She said to those about her, very cheerfully, that she 
had heard say the executioner was a good one, and that she 
had a little neck (she laughed and clasped it with her hands as 
she said that), and would soon be out of her pain. And she 
was soon out of pain, poor creature ! on the green inside the 
Tower ; and her body was flung into an old box, and put away 
in the ground under the chapel. 

There is a story that the king sat in his palace listening 
very anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to an- 
nounce this new murder ; and that, when he heard it come 
booming on the air, he rose up in great spirits, and ordered out 
his dogs to go a hunting. He was bad enough to do it ; but 
whether he did it or not, it is certain that he married Jane Sey- 
mour the very next day. 

I have not much pleasure in recording that she lived just long 
enough to give birth to a son, who was christened Edward, and 
then to die of fever ; for I cannot but think that any woman 
who married such a ruffian, and knew what innocent blood was 
on his hands, deserved the axe that would assuredly have fallen 
on the neck of Jane Seymour if she had lived much longer. 

Cranmer had done what he could to save some of the Church 
property for purposes of religion and education ; but the great 
families had been so hungry to get hold of it, that very little 
could be rescued for such objects. Even Miles Coverdale, who 
4id the people the inestimable service ®f translating the Biblf 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. 



m 



into English (which the unreformed religion never permitted to 
be done), was left in poverty while the great families clutched 
the Church lands and money. The people had been told that, 
when the crown came into possession of these funds, it would 
not be necessary to tax them ; but they were taxed afresh, 
directly afterwards. It was fortunate for them, indeed, that so 
many nobles were so greedy for this wealth ; since, if it had re- 
mained with the crown, there might have been no end to 
tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most active writers 
on the Church's side against the king was a member of his own 
family, a sort of distant cousin, Regmald Pole by name, who 
attacked him in the most violent manner (though he received a 
pension from him all the time), and fought for the Church with 
his pen, day and night. As he was beyond the king's reach, 
being in Italy, the king politely invited him over to discuss the 
subject \ but he, knowing better than to come, and wisely stay- 
ing where he was, the king's rage fell upon his brother. Lord 
Montague, the Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen, 
who were tried for high treason in corresponding with him and 
aiding him, which they probably did, and were all executed. 
The pope made Regmald Pole a cardinal ; but so much against 
his will^ that it is thought he even aspired in his own mind to 
the vacant throne of England, and had hopes of marrying the 
Princess Mary. His being made a high priest, however, put an 
end to all that. His mother, the venerable Countess of Salis- 
bury, who was, unfortunately for herself, within the tyrant's 
reach, was the last of his relatives on whom his wrath fell. 
When she was told to lay her gray head upon the block, she 
answered the executioner, " No ! my head never committed 
treason, and, if you want it, you shall seize it ! " So she ran 
round and round the scaffold, with the executioner striking at 
her, and her gray hair bedabbled with blood ; and, even when 
they held her down upon the block, she moved her head about 
to the last, resolved to be no party to her own barbarous mur- 
der. All this the people bore, as they had borne everything 
else. 

Indeed, they bore much more ; for the slow fires of Smith- 
field were continually burning, and people were constantly 
being roasted to death, — still to show what a good Christian 
the king was. He defied the pope and^his bull, which was now 
issued, and had come into England ; but he burned innumerable 
people whose only offence was that they differed from the pope's 
religious opinions. There was a wretched man named Lambert 
among others, who was tried for this before the king, and witb 



^34 ^ CHILD'S HISTOP V OF ENGLAND. 

whom six bishops argued, one after another. When he was 
quite exhausted (as well he might be, after six bishops), he 
threw himself on the king's mercy , but the king blustered out 
that he had no mercy for heretics. So he^ too, fed the fire. 

All this the people bore, and more than all this yet. The 
national spirit seems to have been banished from the kingdom 
at this time. The very people who were executed for treason, 
the very wives and friends of the " bluff " king, spoke of him on 
the scaffold as a good prince, and a gentle prince, just as serfs 
in similar circumstances have been known to do, under the 
sultan and bashaws of the East, or under the fierce old tyrants 
of Rusiia, v/ho poured boiling and freezing water on them al- 
ternately, until they died. The Parliament were as bad as the 
rest, and gave the king whatever he wanted ; among other vile 
accommodations, they gave him new powers of murdering, at 
his will and pleasure, anyone whom he might choose to call a 
traitor. But the worst measure they passed was an act of six 
articles, commonly called, at the time, "the whip with six 
strings," which punished offences against the pope's opinions 
without meicy, and enforced the very worst parts of the 
monkish religion. Cranmer would have modified it, if he 
could ; but, being overborne by the Romish party, had not the 
power. As one of the articles declared that priests should not 
marry, and as he was married himself, he sent his wife and 
children into Germany, and began to tremble at his danger ; 
none the less because he was, and had long been, the king's 
friend. This whip of six strings was made under the king's own 
eye. It should never be forgotten of him how cruelly he sup- 
ported the worst of the popish doctrines when there was noth- 
ing to be got by opposing them. 

This amiable monarch now thought of taking another wife. 
He proposed to the French king to have some of the ladies of 
the French court exhibited before him, that he might make his 
royal choice ; but the French king answered that he would 
rather not have his ladies trotted out to be shown like horses 
at a fair. He proposed to the Dowager Duchess of Milan, who 
replied that she might have thought of such a match if she had 
had two heads ; but that, only owning one, she must beg to 
keep it safe. At last Cromwell represented that there was a 
Protestant princess in Germany, — those who held the reformed 
religion were called Protestants, because their leaders had pio- 
tesled against the abuses and impositions of the unreformed 
church, — named Anne of Cleves, who was beautiful and would 
answer the purpose admirably. The king said, Was she a large 



ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE EIGHTH. 235 

woman? because he must have a fat wife. "O yes !" said 
Cromwell ; " she was very large, just the thing." On hearing 
this, the king sent over his famous painter, Hans Holbein, to 
take her portrait. Hans made her out to be so good-looking 
that the king was satisfied, and the marriage was arranged. 
But whether anybody had paid Hans to touch up the picture, 
or whether Hans, like one or two other pamters, flattered a 
princess in the ordinary way of business, 1 cannot say ; all I 
know is, that when Anne came over, and the king went to 
Rochester to meet her, and first saw her without her seeing 
him, he swore she was " a great Flanders mare," and said he 
would never marry her. Being obliged to do it, now matters 
had gone so far, he would not give her the presents he had 
prepared, and would never notice her. He never forgave 
Cromwell his part in the affair. His downfall dates from that 
time. 

It was quickened by his enemies, in the interests of the un- 
reformed religion, putting in the king's way, at a state dinner, 
a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Catherine Howard, a young 
lady of fascmating manners, though small in stature and not 
particularly beautiful. Falling in love with her on the spot, the 
king soon divorced Anne of Cleves, after making her the sub- 
ject of much brutal talk, on pretence that she had been pre- 
viously betrothed to some one else, — which would never do for 
one of his dignity, — and married Catherine. It is probable 
that on his weddmg-day, of all days in the year, he sent his 
faithful Cromwell to the scaffold, and had his head struck off. 
He further celebrated the occasion by burning at one time, and 
causing to be drawn to the fire on the same hurdles, some Pro- 
testant prisoners for denying the pope's doctrines, and some 
Roman Catholic prisoners for denying his own supremacy. 
Still the people bore it, and not a gentleman in England raised 
his hand. 

But, by a just retribution, it soon came out that Catherine 
Howard, before her marriage, had been really guilty of such 
crimes as the king had falsely attributed to his second wife, 
Anne Boleyn ; so again the dreadful axe made the king a 
widower, and this queen passed away as so many in that reign 
had passed away before her. As an appropriate pursuit under 
the circumstances, Henry then applied himself to superintend- 
ing the composition of a religious book, called " A Necessary 
Doctrine for any Christian Man." He must have been a little 
confused in his mmd, I think, at about this period ; for he was so 
false to himself as to be true to some one, — that some one being 



236 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Cranmer, whom the Duke of Norfolk and others of his enemies 
tried to ruin, but to whom the king was steadfast, and to whom 
he one night gave his ring, charging him, when he should find 
himself, next day, accused of treason, to show it to the council 
board. This Cranmer did, to the confusion of his enemies. I 
suppose the king thought he might want him a little longer. 

He married yet once more. Yes ; strange to say, he found 
in England another woman who would become his wife • and 
she was Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer. She leaned 
towards the reformed religion j and it is some comfort to know, 
that she tormented the king considerably by arguing a variety 
of doctrinal points with him on all possible occasions. She 
had very nearly done this to her own destruction. After one 
of these conversations, the king, in a very black mood, actually 
instructed Gardiner, one of the bishops who favored the popish 
opinions, to draw a bill of accusation against her, which would 
have inevitably brought her to the scaffold where her predeces- 
sors had died, but that one of her friends picked up the paper of 
instructions which had been^ dropped in the palace, and gave 
her timely notice. She fell ill with terror ; but managed the 
king so well when he came to entrap her into further state- 
ments, — by saying that she had only spoken on such points to 
divert his mind, and to get some information from his ex- 
traordinary wisdom, — that he gave her a kiss, and called her his 
sweetheart. And when the chancellor came next day, actually 
to take her to the Tower, the king sent him about his business, 
and honored him with the epithets of a beast, a knave, and a 
fool. So near was Catherine Parr to the block, and so narrow 
was her escape ! 

There was war with Scotland in this reign, and a short, 
clumsy war with France for favoring Scotland ; but the events 
at home were so dreadful, and leave such an enduring stain 
on the country, that I need say no more of what happened 
abroad. 

A few more horrors, and this reign is over. There was a 
lady, Anne Askew, in Lincolnshire, who inclined to the Protes- 
tant opinions, and whose husband, being a fierce Catholic, 
turned her out of the house. She came to London, and was 
considered as offending against the six articles, and was taker? 
to the Tower, and put upon the rack, — probably because it was 
hoped she might, in her agony, criminate some obnoxious per- 
sons \ if falsely, so much the better. She was tortured without 
uttering a cry, until the Lieutenant of the Tower would suffer 
his men to torture her no more ; and then two priests, wh« 



SMLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SiXTk, 23) 

were present, actually pulled off their robes, and turned the 
wheels of the rack with their own hands, so rending and twist- 
ing and breaking her that she was afterwards carried to the 
fire in a chair. She was burned with three others, — a gentle- 
man, a clergyman, and a tailor ; and so the world went on. 

Either the king became afraid of the power of the Duke of 
Norfolk, and his son, the Earl of Surrey, or they gave him some 
offence ; but he resolved to pull them down, to follow all the 
rest who were gone. The son was tried first, — of course for 
nothing, — and defended himself bravely ; but of course he was 
found guilty, and of course he was executed. Then his father 
was laid hold of, and left for death too. 

But the king himself was left for death by a greater King, 
and the earth was to be rid of him at last. He was now a 
swollen, hideous spectacle, with a great hole in his leg, and so 
odious to every sense that it was dreadful to approach him. 
When he was found to be dying, Cranmer was sent for from 
his palace at Croydon, and came with all speed, but found him 
speechless. Happily, in that hour he perished. He was in the 
fifty-sixth year of his age, and thirty-eighth of his reign. 

Henry the Eighth has been favored by some Protestant 
writers, because the Reformation was achieved in his time. 
But the mighty merit of it lies with other men, and not with 
him ; and it can be rendered none the worse by this monster's 
crimes, and none the better by any defence of them. The 
plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace 
to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the his- 
tory of England. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH. 

Henry the Eighth had made a will, appointing a council 
of sixteen to govern the kingdom for his son while he was under 
age (he was now only ten years old), and another council of 
twelve to help them. The most powerful of the first council 
was the Earl of Hertford,, the young king's uncle, who lost no 
time in bringing his nephew with great state up to Enfield, and 
thence to the Tower. It was considered, at the time, a strib 



i^S ^ cHiLb's His Tory of BnglaMD. 

ing proof of virtue in the young king that he was sorry for his 
father's death ; but as common subjects have that virtue too, 
sometimes, we will say no more about it. 

There was a curious part of the late king's will, requiring 
his executors to fulfil whatever promises he had made. Some 
of the court wondering what these might be, the Earl of Hert- 
ford and the other noblemen interested said that they were 
promises to advance and enrich tJmn. So the Earl of Hertford 
made himself Duke of Somerset, and made his brother Edward 
Seymour a baron ; and there were various similar promotions 
all very agreeable to the parties concerned, and very dutiful, 
no doubt, to the late king's memory. To be more dutiful still, 
they made themselves rich out of the Church lands, and were 
very comfortable. The new Duke of Somerset caused himself 
to be declared Protector of the kingdom, and was, indeed, the 
king. 

As young Edward the Sixth had been brought up in the 
principles of the Protestant religion, everybody knew that they 
would be maintained. But Cran.ner, to whom they were chiefly 
intrusted, advanced them steadily and temperately. Many su- 
perstitious and ridiculous practices were stopped ; but prac- 
tices which were harmless were not interfered with. 

The Duke of Somerset, the Protector, was anxious to have 
the young king engaged in marriage to the young Queen of 
Scotland, in order to prevent that princess from making an al- 
liance with any foreign power ; but, as a large party in Scotland 
were unfavorable to tMs plan, he invaded that country. His 
excuse for doing so was, that the Border-men — that is, the 
Scotch who lived in that part of the country where England 
and Scotland joined — troubled the English very much. But 
there were two sides to this question ; for the English Border- 
men troubled the Scotch too ; and, through many long years, 
there were perpetual Border quarrels, which gave rise to num- 
bers of old tales and songs. However, the Protector invaded 
Scotland ; and Arran, Scottish Regent, with an army twice as 
large as his, advanced to meet him. They encountered on the 
banks of the river Esk, within a few miles of Edinburgh ; and 
there, after a little skirmish, the Protector made such modeiate 
proposals, in offering to retire if the Scotch would only engage 
not to marry their princess to any foreign prince, that the 
regent thought the English were afraid. But in this he made 
a horrible mistake ; for the English soldiers on land, and the 
English sailors on the water, so set upon the Scotch, that they 
broke and fled, and more than ten thousand of them were 



BNGLAND UNDER EDVrARD THE SIXTH. 235 

killed. It was a dreadful battle, for the fugitives were slain 
without mercy. The ground for four miles, all the way to Edin- 
burgh, was strewn with dead men, and with arms and legs and 
heads. Some hid themselves in streams, and were drowned ; 
some threw away their armor, and were killed running, almost 
naked; but in this battle of Pinkey the English lost only two 
or three hundred men. They were much better clothed than 
the Scotch, at the poverty of whose appearance and country 
ihey were exceedingly astonished. 

A parliament was called when Somerset came back ; and 
it repealed the whip with six strings, and did one or two other 
good things j though it unhappily retained the punishment of 
burning for those people who did not make believe to believe, 
in all religious matters, what the government had declared that 
they must and should believe. It also made a foolish law 
(meant to put down beggars), that any man who lived idly, and 
loitered about for three days together, should be burned with a 
hot iron, made a slave, and wear an iron fetter. But this sav- 
age absurdity soon came to an end, and went the way of a 
great many other foolish laws. 

The Protector was now so proud, that he sat in parliament 
before all the nobles, on the right hand of the throne. Many 
other noblemen, who only wanted to be as proud if they could 
get a chance, became his enemies of course ; and it is supposed 
that he came back suddenly trom Scotland because he had re- 
ceived news that his brother, Lord Seymour, was becoming 
dangerous to him. This lord was now High Admiral of Eng- 
land ; a very handsome man, and a great favorite with the 
court ladies, — even with the young Princess Elizabeth, who 
romped with him a little more than young princesses in these 
times do with any one. He had married Catherine Parr, the 
late king's widow, who was now dead ; and, to strengthen his 
power, he secretly supplied the young king with money. He 
may even have engaged with some of his brother's enemies in 
a plot to carry the boy off. On these and other accusations, 
at any rate, he was confined in the Tower, impeached, and 
found guilty; his own brother's name being — unnatural and 
sad to tell — the first signed to the warrant for his executioa 
He was executed on Tower Hill, and died denying his treason. 
One of his last proceedings in this world was to write two let- 
ters, one to the Princess Elizabeth, and one to the Princess 
Mary, which a servant of his took charge of, and concealed in 
his shoe. These letters are supposed to have urged them 
against his brother, and to revenge his death. What they truly 



^46 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF EMGLANu. 

contained is not known ; but tliere is no doubt tliat he had, at 
one time, obtained great influence over the Princess Elizabeth. 

All this while the Protestant religion was making progress. 
The images which the people had gradually come to worship 
were removed from the churches ; the people were informed 
that they need not confess themselves to priests unless they 
chose ; a common prayer-book was drawn up in the English 
language, which all could understand \ and many other improve* 
ments were made, — still moderately ; for Cranmer was a very 
moderate man, and even restrained the Protestant clergy from 
violently abusing the unreformed religion, as they very often 
did, and which was not a good example. But the people were 
at this time in great distress. The rapacious nobility who had 
come into possession of the Church lands were very bad land- 
lords. They enclosed great quantities of ground for the feed- 
ing of sheep, which was then more profitable than the growing 
of crops ; and this increased the general distress. So the peo- 
ple, v/ho still understood little of what was going on about 
them, and still readily believed what the homeless monks told 
them, — many of whom had been their good friends in their 
better days, — took it into their heads that all this was owing to 
the reformed religion, and therefore rose in many parts of the 
country. 

The most powerful risings were in Devonshire and Norfolk. 
In Devonshire, the rebellion was so strong that ten thousand 
men united within a few days, and even laid siege to Exeter 
But Lord Russell, coming to the assistance of the citizens who 
defended that town, defeated the rebels ; and not only hanged 
the mayor of one place, but hanged the vicar of another from 
his own church steeple. What with hanging, and killing by 
the sword, four thousand of the rebels are supposed to have 
fallen in that one county. In Norfolk (where the rising was 
more against the enclosure of open lands than against the 
reformed religion), the popular leader was a man named Robert 
Ket, a tanner of Wymondham. The mob were, in the first 
instance, excited against the tanner by one John Flowerdew, a 
gentleman who owed him a grudge ; but the tanner was more 
than a match for the gentleman, since he soon got the people 
on his side, and established himself near Norwich, with quite 
an army. There was a large oak-tree in that place, on a spot 
called Moushold Hill, which Ket named the Tree of Reform- 
ation ; and under its green boughs, he and his men sat in the 
midsummer weather, holding courts of justice, and debating 
affairs of state. They were even impartial enough to allow 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH. 241 

some rather tiresome public speakers to get up into this Tree 
of Reformation, and point out their errors to them in long dis- 
courses, while they lay listening (not always without some 
grumbling and growling) in the shade below. At last, one 
sunny July day, a herald appeared below the tree, and pro- 
claimed Ket and all his men traitors, unless from that moment 
they dispersed and went home ; in which case they were to 
receive a pardon. But Ket and his men made light of the 
herald, and became stronger than ever, until the Earl of War- 
wick went after them with a sufficient force, and cut them all 
to pieces. A few were hanged, drawn, and quartered as trai- 
tors ; and their limbs were sent into various country places to 
be a terror to the people. Nine of them were hanged upon 
nine green branches of the Oak of Reformation ; and so, for 
the time, that tree may be said to have withered away. 

The Protector, though a haughty man, had compassion for 
the real distresses of the common people, and a sincere desire 
to help them. But he was too proud and too high in degree 
to hold even their favor steadily ; and many of the nobles 
always envied and hated him, because they were as proud and 
not as high as he. He was at this time building a great palace 
in the Strand ; to get the stone for which he blew up church- 
yteeples with gunpowder, and pulled down bishops' houses ; 
thus making himself still more disliked. At length, his princi- 
pal enemy, the Earl of Warwick, — Dudley by name, and the 
son of that Dudley who had made himself so odious with 
Empson, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, — joined with seven 
other members of the council against him, formed a separate 
council, and, becoming stronger in a few days, sent him to the 
Tower under twenty-nine articles of accusation. After being 
sentenced by the council to the forfeiture of all his offices and 
lands, he was liberated and pardoned on making a very hum- 
ble submission. He was even taken back into the council 
again, after having suffered this fall, and married his daughter, 
Lady Anne Seymour, to Warwick's eldest son. But such a 
reconciliation was little likely to last, and did not outlive a 
year. Warwick, having got himself made Duke of Northum- 
berland, and having advanced the more important of his 
friends, then finished the history by causing the Duke of Somer- 
set and his friend Lord Grey, and others, to be arrested for 
treason, in having conspired to seize and dethrone the king. 
They were also accused of having intended to seize the new 
Duke of Northumberland, with his friends, Lord Northampton 
and Lord Pembroke, to murder them if they found need, and 



242 



A CHTLD'S /nSTORY OF ENGLAh^D. 



to raise the city to revolt. All this the fallen Protector pos- 
itively denied ; except that he confessed to having spoken o\ 
the murder of those three noblemen, but having never designed 
it. He was acquitted of the charge of treason, and found guilty 
of the other charges ; so when the people — who remembered 
his having been their friend, now that he was disgraced and in 
danger — saw him come out from his trial with the axe turned 
from him, they thought he was altogether acquitted, and set up 
a loud shout of joy. 

But the Duke of Somerset was ordered to be beheaded on 
Tower Hill, at eight o'clock in the morning, and proclamations 
were issued bidding the citizens keep at home until after ten. 
They filled the streets, however, and crowded the place of 
execution as soon as it was light ; and, with sad faces and sad 
hearts, saw the once powerful Protector ascend the scaffold to 
lay his head upon the dreadful block. While he was yet say- 
ing his last words to them with manly courage, and telling 
them in particular how it comforted him, at that pass, to have 
assisted in reforming the national religion, a member of the 
council was seen riding up on horseback. They again thought 
that the duke was saved by his bringing a reprieve, and again 
shouted for joy. But the duke himself told them they were 
mistaken, and laid down his head and had it struck off at a 
blow. 

Many of the bystanders rushed forward, and steeped their 
handkerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection. He 
had, indeed, been capable of many good acts, and one of them 
was discovered after he was no more. The Bishop of Durham, a 
very good man, had been informed against to the council, when 
the duke was in power, a^ having answered a treacherous letter 
proposing a rebellion against the reformed religion. As the 
answer could not be found, he could not be declared guilty ; 
but it was now discovered, hidden by the duke himself am.ong 
some private papers, in his regard for that good man. The 
bishop lost his office, and was deprived of his possessions. 
j It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay in 
prison under sentence of death, the young king was being vastly 
entertained by plays and dances and sham fights ; but there is 
no doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. It is pleasantei 
to know that not a single Roman Catholic was burnt in this reign 
for holding that religion ; though two wretched victims suffered 
for heresy. One, a woman named Joan Bocher, for professing 
some opinions that even she could only explain in unintelligible 
jargon. The other, a Dutchman, named Von Paris, who prao 



ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE SIXTH. 243 

tised as a surgeon in London. Edward was, to his credit, ex- 
ceedingly unwilling to sign the warrant for the woman's execu- 
tion, shedding tears before he did so, and telling Cranmer, who 
urged him to do it (though Cranmer really would have spared 
the woman at first, but for her own determined obstinacy), that 
the guilt was not his, but that of the man who so strongly 
urged the dreadful act. We shall see, too soon, whether the 
time ever came when Cranmer is likely to have remembered 
this with sorrow and remorse. 

Cranmer and Ridley (at first Bishop of Rochester, and after 
wards Bishop of London) were the most powerful of the clergy 
of this reign. Others were imprisoned and deprived of their 
property for still adhering to the unreformed religion ; the most 
important among whom were Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 
Heath, Bishop of Worcester, Day, Bishop of Chichester, and 
Bonner, that Bishop of London who was superseded by Ridley. 
The Princess Mary, who inherited her mother's gloomy temper 
and hated the reformed religion as connected with her mother's 
wrongs and sorrows, — she knew nothing else about it, always 
refusing to read a single book in which it was truly described, 
— held by the unreformed religion too, and was the only person 
in the kingdom for whom the old mass was allowed to be per- 
formed ; nor would the young king have made that exception 
even in her favor, but for the strong persuasions of Cranmer 
and Ridley. He always viewed it with horror ; and when he 
fell into a sickly condition, after having been very ill, first of 
the measles and then of the small-pox, he was greatly troubled 
in mind to think that if he died, and she, the next heir to the 
throne, succeeded, the Roman Catholic religion would be set 
up again. 

This uneasiness, the Duke of Northumberland was not slow 
to encourage ; for if the Princess Mary came to the throne, he, 
who had taken part with the Protestants, was sure to be dis- 
graced. Now the Duchess of Suffolk was descended from King 
Henry the Seventh \ and if she resigned what little or no right 
she had, in favor of her daughter, Lady j ane Grey, that would 
be the succession to promote the duke's greatness ; because 
Lord Guilford Dudley, one of his sons, was, at this very time, 
newly married to her. So he worked upon the king's fears, and 
persuaded him to set aside both the Princess Mary and the 
Princess Elizabeth, and assert his right to appoint his successor. 
Accordingly the young king handed to the crown lawyers a 
writing signed half a dozen times over by himself, appointing 
Lady Jane Grey to succeed to the crown, and requiring them ta 



244 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



have his will made out according to law. They were much 
against it at first, and told the king so ; but the Duke of North- 
umberland being so violent about it that the lawyers even ex- 
pected him to beat them, and hotly declaring that, stripped to 
his shirt, he would fight any man in such a quarrel, they yielded. 
Cranmer also at first hesitated ; pleading that he had sworn to 
maintain the succession of the crown to the Princess Mary ; but 
he was a weak man in his resolutions, and afterwards signed 
the document with the rest of the council. 

It was completed none too soon ; for Edward was now sink- 
ing in a rapid decline ; and, by way of making him better, they 
handed him over to a woman-doctor who pretended to be able 
to cure it. He speedily got worse. On the 6th of July, in the 
year 1553, he died, very peaceably and piously, praying God, 
with his last breath, to protect the reformed religion. 

This king died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the 
seventh of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the character 
of one so young might afterwards have become among so many 
bad, ambitious, quarrelling nobles. But he was an amiable boy, 
of very good abilities, and had nothing coarse or cruel or brutal 
in his disposition, which in the son of such a father is rather 
surprising. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

ENGLAND UNDER MARY. 

The Duke of Northumberland was very anxious to keep the 
young king's death a secret, in order that he might get the two 
princesses into his power. But the - Princess Mary, being in- 
formed of that event as she was on her way to London to see 
her sick brother, turned her horse's head, and rode away into 
Norfolk. The Earl of Arundel was her friend ; and it was he 
who sent her warning of what had happened. 

As the secret could not be kept, the Duke of Northum- 
berland and the council sent for the Lord Mayor of London, 
and some of the aldermen, and made a merit of telling it to 
them. Then they made it known to the people, and set off to 
inform Lady Jane Grey that she was to be queen. 

She was a pretty girl of only sixteen, and was am.iabk, 



ENGLAND UNDER MARY. 



24S 



learned, and clever. When the lords who came to her fell on 
their knees before her, and told her what tidings they brought, 
she was so astonished that she fainted. On recovering she ex- 
pressed her sorrow for the young king's death, and said that 
she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom ; but that, if she 
must be queen, she prayed God to direct her. She was then at 
Sion House, near Brentford ; and the lords took her down the 
river in state to the Tower, that she might remain there (as the 
custom was) until she was crowned. " But the people were not 
at all favorable to Lady Jane, considering that the right to be 
queen was Mary's, and greatly disliking the Duke of North- 
umberland. They were not put into a better humor by the 
duke's causing a vintner's servant, one Gabriel Pot, to be taken 
up for expressing his dissatisfaction among the crowd, and to 
have his ears nailed to the pillory, and cut off. Some powerful 
men among the nobility declared on Mary's side. They raised 
troops to support her cause, had her proclaimed queen at Nor- 
wich, and gathered around her at the Castle of Framlin-gham, 
which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For she was not con- 
sidered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her in a 
castle on the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent abroad 
if necessary. 

The council would have despatched Lady Jane's father, the 
Duke of Suffolk, as the general of the army, against this force ; 
but as Lady Jane implored that her father might remain with 
her, and as he was known to be but a weak man, they told the 
Duke of Northumberland that he must take the command him- 
self. He was not very ready to do so, as he mistrusted the 
council much ; but there was no help for it, and he set forth 
with a heavy heart, observing to a lord who rode beside him 
through Shoreditch at the head of the troops, that, although the 
people pressed in great numbers to look at them, they were 
terribly silent. 

And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. 
While he was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the 
council, the council took it into their heads to turn their backs 
on Lady Jane's cause, and to take up the Princess Mary's. 
This was chiefly owing to the before-mentioned Earl of Arundel, 
who represented to the lord mayor and- aldermen, in a second 
interview with those sagacious persons, that as for himself, he 
did not perceive the reformed religion to be in much danger, — 
which Lord Pembroke backed by flourishing his sword as an- 
other kind of persuasion. The lord mayor and aldermen thus 
enlightened, said there could be no doubf that the Princess 



246 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Mary ought to be queen. So she was proclaimed at the Cross 
by St. Paul's ; and barrels of wine were given to the people, 
and they got very drunk, and danced round blazing bonfires, 
little thinking, poor wretches, what other bonfires would soon 
be blazing in Queen Mary's name. 

"After a ten-days' dream of royalty. Lady Jane Grey re- 
signed the crown with great willingness, saying that she had only 
accepted it in obedience to her father and mother, and went 
gladly back to her pleasant house by the river, and her books. 
Mary then came on towards London ; and at Wanstead, in 
Essex was joined by her half-sister, the Princess Elizabeth. 
They passed through the streets of London to the Tower ; and 
there the new queen met some eminent prisoners then confined 
in it, kissed them, and gave them their liberty. Among these 
was that Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who had been im- 
prisoned in the last reign for holding to the unreformed religion- 
Him she soon made chancellor. 

The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner,, 
and together with his son and five others, was quickly brought 
before the council. He, not unnaturally, asked that council, 
in his defence, whether it was treason to obey orders that had 
been issued under the great seal ; and, if it were, whether they, 
who had obeyed them too, ought to be his judges 1 But they 
made light of these points ; and, being resolved to have him 
out of the way, soon sentenced him to death. He had risen 
into power upon the death of another man, and made but a 
poor show (as might be expected) when he himself lay low. 
He entreated Gardiner to let him live, if it were only in a mouse's 
hole j and, when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on 
Tower Hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, saying 
that he had been incited by others, and exhorting them to re- 
turn to the unreformed religion, which he told them was his 
faith. There seems reason to suppose that he expected a par- 
don even then, in return for this confession ; but it matters 
little whether he did or not. His head was struck off. 

Mary was now crowned queen. She was thirty-seven years 
of age, short and thin, wrinkled in the face, and very un- 
healthy. But she had a great liking for show and for bright 
colors, and all the ladies of her court were magnificently 
dressed. She had a great liking, too, for old customs, without 
much sense in them ; and she was oiled in the oldest way, 
and blessed in the oldest way, and done all manner of things 
to in the oldest way, at her coronation. I hope they did hei 
good. 



ENGLAND tJNDEK MARY. 24'/ 

She soon began to show her desire to put down the teformed 
religion, and put up the unreformed one ; though it was dan- 
gerous work as yet, the people being something wiser than they 
used to be. They even cast a shower of stones — and among 
them a dagger — at one of the royal chaplains who attacked 
the reformed religion in a public sermon. But the queen and 
her priests went steadily on. Ridley, the powerful bishop of 
the last reign, was seized and sent to the Tower. Latimer, also 
celebrated among the clergy of the last reign, was likewise 
sent to the Tower, and Cranmer speedily followed. Latimer 
was an aged man ; and as his guards took him through Smith- 
field, he looked round it, and said, " This is a place that hath 
long groaned for me." For he knew well what kind of bonfires 
would soon be burning, Nor was the knowledge confined to 
him. The prisons were fast filled with the chief Protestants, 
who were there left rotting in darkness, hunger, dirt, and sep- 
aration from their friends ; many, who had time left them for 
escape, fled from the kingdom, and the dullest of the people 
began now to see what was coming. 

It came on fast. A parliament was got together ; not with- 
out strong suspicion of unfairness ; and they annulled the di- 
vorce, formerly pronounced by Cranmer between the queen's 
mother and King Henry the Eighth, and unmade all the laws 
on the subject of religion that had been made in the last King 
Edward's reign. They began their proceedings, in violation of 
the law, by having the old mass said before them in Latin, and 
by turning out a bishop who would not kneel down. They also 
declared guilty of treason Lady Jane Grey, for aspiring to the 
crown ; her husband, for being her husband ; and Cranmer, 
for not believing in the mass aforesaid. They then prayed the 
queen graciously to choose a husband for herself, as soon as 
might be. 

Now the question who should be the queen's husband had 
given rise to a great deal of discussion, and to several contend- 
ing parties. Some said Cardinal Pole was the man ; but the 
queen was of opinion that he was not the man, he being 
too old and too much of a student. Others said that the 
gallant young Courtenay, whom the queen had made Earl of 
Devonshire, was the man, — and the queen thought so too 
for a while, but she changed her mind. At last it appeared that 
Philip, Prince of Spain, was certainly the man, — though cer- 
tainly not the people's man ; for they detested the idea of 
such a marriage from the beginning to the end, and murmured 
that the Spaniard would establish in England, by the aid of 



24S ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

foreign soldiers, the worst abuses of the popish religion, and 
even the terrible Inquisition itself. 

These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying 
young Courtenay to the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them 
up with popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the 
queen. This was discovered in time by Gardiner ; but in Kent, 
the old bold county, the people rose in their old bold way. Sir 
Thomas Wyat, a man of great daring, was their leader. He 
raised his standard at Maidstone, marched on to Rochester, 
established himself in the old castle there, and prepared to 
hold out against the Duke of Norfolk, who came against him 
with a party of the queen's guards and a body of five hundred 
London men. The London men, however, were all for Eliza- 
beth, and not at all for Mary. They declared, under the cas- 
tle walls, for Wyat ; the Duke retreated ; and Wyat came on to 
Deptford, at the head of fifteen thousand men. 

But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to South 
wark, there were only two thousand left. Not dismayed by 
finding the London citizens in arms, and the guns at the 
Tower ready to oppose his crossing the river there, Wyat led 
them off to Kingston-upon-Thames, intending to cross the 
bridge that he knew to be in that place, and so to work his way 
round to Ludgate, one of the old gates of the city. He found 
the bridge broken down, but mended it, came across, and bravely 
fought his way, up Fleet Street, to Ludgate Hill. Finding the 
gate closed against him, he fought his way back again, sword 
in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being overpowered, he sur- 
rendered himself, and three or four hundred of his men were 
taken, besides a hundred killed. Wyat, in a moment of weak- 
ness (and perhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse 
the Princess Elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small 
extent. But his manhood soon returned to him, and he re- 
fused to save his life by making any more false confessions. 
He was quartered and distributed in the usual brutal way, and 
from fifty to a hundred of his followers were hanged. The rest 
were led out, with halters round their necks, to be par-doned, 
and to make a parade of crying out, " God save Queen Mary ! " 

In the danger of this rebellion, the queen showed herself 
to be a woman of courag^e and spirit. She disdained to retreat 
to anyplace of safety, and went down to the Guildhall, sceptre 
in hand, and made a gallant speech to the Lord Mayor and 
citizens. But on the day after Wyat's defeat she did the most 
cruel act, even of her cruel reign, in signing the death-warrant 
for the execution of Lady Jane Grey. 



ENGLAND UNDER MARY, 



249 



They tried to persuade Lady Jane to accept the unreformed 
religion ; but she steadily refused. On the morning when she 
was to die, she sawJrom her window the bleeding and headless 
body of her husband brought back in a cart from the scaffold 
on Tower Hill, where he had laid down his life. But, as she 
had declined to see him before his execution, lest she should 
be overpowered and not make a good end, so she even now 
showed a constancy and calmness that will never be forgotten. 
She came up to the scaffold with a firm step and a quiet face, 
and addressed the bystanders in a steady voice. They were 
not numerous ; for she was too young, too innocent and fair, to 
be murdered before the people on Tower Hill, as her husband 
had just been ; so the place of her execution was within the 
Tower itself. She said that she had done an unlawful act in 
taking what was Queen Mary's right ; but that she had done so 
with no bad intent, and that she died a humble Christian. She 
begged the executioner to despatch her quickly, and she asked 
him, " Will you take my head off before I lay me down ? " He 
answered, " No, madam," and then she was very quiet while 
they bandaged her eyes. Being blinded, and unable to see the 
block on which she was to lay her young head, she was seen to 
feel about for it with her hands, and was heard to say, confused, 
" O, what shall I do? Where is it ? " Then they guided her 
to the right place, and the executioner struck off her head. 
You know too well, now, what dreadful deeds the executioner 
did in England, through many, many years, and how his axe 
descended on the hateful block through the necks of some of 
the bravest, wisest, and best in the land. But it never struck 
so cruel and so vile a blow as this. 

The father of Lady Jane soon followed, but was little pitied. 
Queen Mary's next object was to lay hold of Elizabeth, and 
this was pursued with great eagerness. Five hundred men 
were sent to her retired house at Ashridge, by Berkhampstead, 
with orders to bring her up, alive or dead. They got there at 
ten at night, when she was sick in bed. But their leaders 
followed her lady into her bedchamber, whence she was brought 
out betimes next morning, and put into a litter to be conveyed 
to London. She was so weak and ill that she was five days on 
the road ; still, she was so resolved to be seen by the people 
that she had the curtains of the litter opened ; and so, very pale 
and sickly, passed through the streets. She wrote to her sister, 
saying she was innocent of any crime, and asking why she was 
made a prisoner ; but she got no answer, and was ordered to 
the Tower. They took her in by the Traitor's Gate, to which 



250 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



she objected, but in vain. One of the lords who conveyed her 
offered to cover her with his cloak, as it was raining ; but she 
put it away from her, proudly and scornfully, and passed into 
the Tower, and sat down in a courtyard on a stone. They 
besought her to come in out of the wet ; but she answered that 
it was better sitting there than in a worse place. At length 
she went to her apartment, where she was kept a prisoner, 
though not so close a prisoner as at Woodstock, whither she was 
afterwards removed, and where she is said to have one day 
envied a milkmaid whom she heard singing in the sunshine as 
she went through the green fields. Gardiner, than whom there 
were not many worse men among the fierce and sullen priests, 
cared little to keep secret his stern desire for her death ; being 
used to say that it was of little service to shake off the leave^, 
and lop the branches of the tree of heresy, if its root, the hope 
of heretics, were left. He failed, however, in his benevolent 
design. Elizabeth was at length released ; and Hatfield House 
was assigned to her as a residence, under the care of one Sir 
Thomas Pope. 

It would seem that Philip, the Prince of Spain, was a main 
cause of this change in Elizabeth's fortunes. He was not an 
amiable man, being, on the contrary, proud, overbearing, and 
gloomy ; but he and the Spanish lords who came over with 
him assuredly did discountenance the idea of doing any violence 
to the princess. It may have been mere prudence, but we will 
hope it was manhood and honor. The queen had been ex- 
pecting her husband with great impatience; and at length he 
came, to her great joy, though he never cared much for her. 
They were married by Gardiner, at Winchester, and there was 
more holiday-making among the people ; but they had their old 
distrust of this Spanish marriage, in which even the Parliament 
shared. Though the members of that parliament were far from 
honest, and were strongly suspected to have been bought with 
Spanish money, they would pass no bill to enable the queen to 
set aside the Princess Elizabeth, and appoint her own suc- 
cessor. 

Although Gardiner failed in this object, as well as in the 
darker one of bringing the princess to the scaffold, he went 
on at a great pace in the revival of the unreformed religion, 
A new parliament was packed, in which there were no Prot- 
estants. Preparations were made to receive Cardinal Pole in 
England as the pope's messenger, bringing his holy declaration 
that all the nobility who had acquired Church property should 
keep it j which was done to enlist their selfish interest on the 



ENGLAND UNDER MAkY. 



^S* 



pope^s side. Then a great scene was enacted, which was the 
triumph of the queen's plans. Cardinal Pole arrived in great 
splendor and dignity, and was received with great pomp. The 
Parliament joined in a petition expressive of their sorrow at 
the change in the national religion, and praying him to receive 
the country again into the Popish Church. With the queen 
sitting on her throne, and the king on one side of her, and the 
cardinal on the other, and the Parliament present, Gardiner 
read the petition aloud. The cardinal then made a great 
speech, and was so obliging as to say that all was forgotten and 
forgiven, and that the kingdom was solemnly made Roman 
CathoHc again. 

Everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible bon- 
fires. The queen having declared to the council, in writing, that 
she would wish none of her subjects to be burnt without some 
of the council being present, and that she would particularly 
wish there to be good sermons at all burnings, the council knew 
pretty well what was to be done next. So after the cardinal 
had blessed all the bishops as a preface to the burnings, the 
Chancellor Gardiner opened a high court at St. Mary Overy, 
on the Southwark side of London Bridge, for the trial of 
heretics. Here two of the late Protestant clergymen, Hooper, 
Bishop of Gloucester, and Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul's, 
were brought to be tried. Hooper was tried first for being 
married, tliough a priest, and for not believing in the mass. 
He admitted both of these accusations, and said that the mass 
was a wicked imposition. Then they tried Rogers, who said 
the same. Next morning the two were brought up to be sen- 
tenced ; and then Rogers said that his poor wife, being a 
German woman and a stranger in the land, he hoped might be 
allowed to come to speak to him before he died. To this the 
inhuman Gardiner replied, that she was not his wife. " Yea, 
but she is, my lord," said Rogers ; " she hath been my wife 
these eighteen years." His request was still refused, and they 
were both sent to Newgate ; all those who stood in the streets 
to sell things being ordered to put out their lights that the 
people might not see them. But the people stood at their doors 
with candles in their hands, and prayed for them as they went 
by. Soon afterwards Rogers was taken out of jail to be burnt 
in Smithfield ; and, in the crowd as he went along, he saw his 
poor wife and his ten children, of whom the youngest was a 
little baby. And so he was burnt to death. 

The next day Hooper, v^ho was to be burnt at Gloucester, 
was brought out to take his last journey, and was made to wear 



^3^ 



A CHILD'S History op England. 



a hood over his face that he might not be known by the people. 
But they did know him for all that, down in his own part of the 
country ; and when he came near Gloucester, they lined the 
road, making prayers and lamentations. His guards took him 
to a lodging, where he slept soundly all night. At nine o'clock 
next morning, he was brought forth leaning on a staff ; for he 
had taken cold in prison, and was infirm. The iron stake, and 
the iron chain which was to bind him to it, were fixed up near 
a great elm-tree, in a pleasant open place before the cathedral, 
where, on peaceful Sundays, he had been accustomed to preach 
and to pray when he was Bishop of Gloucester. This tree, 
which had no leaves then, it being February, was filled with 
people ; and the priests of Gloucester College were lo6king 
complacently on from a window ; and there was a great con- 
course of spectators in every spot from which a glimpse of the 
dreadful sight could be beheld. When the old man kneeled 
down on the small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed 
aloud, the nearest people were observed to be so attentive to 
his prayers that they were ordered to stand farther back ; for it 
did not suit the Romish Church to have those Protestant words 
heard. His prayers concluded, he went up to the stake, and 
was stripped to his shirt, and chained ready for the fire. One 
of his guards had such compassion on him, that, to shorten his 
agonies, he tied some packets of gunpowder about him. Then 
they heaped up wood and straw and reeds, and set them all 
alight. But unhappily the wood was green and damp, and 
there was a wind blowing that blew what flame there was away. 
Thus, through three quarters of an hour, the good old man was 
scorched and roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank \ 
and all that time they saw him, as he burned, moving his lips 
in prayer, and beating his breast with one hand, even after the 
other was burnt away and had fallen off. 

Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were taken to Oxford to dis- 
pute with a commission of priests and doctors about the mass. 
They were shamefully treated ; and it is recorded that the Ox- 
ford scholars hissed and howled and groaned, and misconducted 
themselves in anything but a scholarly way. The prisoners 
were taken back to jail, and afterwards tried in St. Mary's 
Church. They were all found guilty. On the sixteenth of the 
month of October, Ridley and Latimer were brought out to 
make another of the dreadful bonfires. 

The scene of the suffering of these two good Protestant 
men was in the city ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to 
the dreadful spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced 



ENGLAND UNDER MARY. 253 

each other. And then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit 
which was placed there, and preached a sermon from the text, 
*' Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it 
profiteth me nothing." When you think of the charity of burn 
ing men alive, you may imagine that this learned doctor had 
a rather brazen face. Ridley would have answered his sermon 
when it came to an end, but was not allowed. When Latimer 
was stripped, it appeared that he had dressed himself, under 
his other clothes, in a new shroud ; and, as he stood in it before 
all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered, that, 
whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes 
before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge 
that he was dying for a just and a great cause. Ridley's 
brother-in-law was there with bags of gunpowder ; and when 
they were both chained up, he tied them round their bodies. 
Then a light was thrown upon the pile to fire it. " Be of good 
comfort. Master Ridley," said Latimer at that awful moment, 
" and play the man ! We shall this day light such a candle, by 
God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." 
And then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he 
were washing them in the flames, and to stroke his aged face 
with them, and was heard to cry, " Father of Heaven ! receive 
my soul." He died quickly ; but the fire, after having burned 
the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he lingered, chained to the 
iron post, and crying, " O, I cannot burn ! O, for Christ's 
sake, let the fire come unto me ! " And still, when his brother- 
in-law had heaped on more wood, he was heard through the 
blinding smoke still dismally crying, " O, I cannot burn, I can- 
not burn ! " At last the gunpowder caught fire, and ended his 
miseries. 

Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his tre- 
mendous account before God, for the cruelties he had so much 
assisted in committing. 

Cranmer remained^still alive and in prison. He was brought 
out again in February, for more examining and trying, by Bon- 
ner, Bishop of London, — another man of blood, who had suc- 
ceeded to Gardiner's work, even in his lifetime, when Gardiner 
was tired of it. Cranmer was now degraded as a priest, and 
left for death ; but, if the queen hated any one on earth, she 
hated him ; and it was resolved that he should be ruined and 
disgraced to the utmost. There is no doubt that the queen 
and her husband personally urged on these deeds, because they 
wrote to the council, urging them to be active in the kindling of 
the fearful fir^Sp As Cranmer was known not to be a firm ip^nj 



254 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



a plan was laid for surrounding him with artful people, and in* 
ducing him to recant to the unreformed religion. Deans and 
friars visited him, played at bowls with him, showed him various 
attentions, talked persuasively with him, gave him money for 
his prison comforts, and induced him to sign, I fear, as many 
as six recantations. But when, after all, he was taken out to be 
burnt, he was nobly true to his better self, and made a glorious 
end. 

After prayers and a sermon. Dr. Cole, the preacher of the 
day (who had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer in 
prison), required him to make a public confession of his faith 
before the people. This Cole did, expecting that he would de- 
clare himself a Roman Catholic. " I will make a profession of 
my faith," said Cranmer, " and with a good will too." 

Then he arose before them all, and took from the sleeve of 
his robe a written prayer, and read it aloud. That done, he 
knelt and said the Lord's Prayer, all the people joining ; and 
then he arose again, and told them that he believed in the 
Bible ; and that in what he had lately written, he had written 
what was not the truth ; and that, because his right hand had 
signed those papers, he would burn his right hand first when he 
came to the fire. As for the pope, he did refuse him and de- 
nounce him, as the enemy of Heaven. Hereupon the pious 
Dr. Cole cried out to the guards to stop that heretic's mouth, 
and take him away. 

So they took him away, and chained him to the stake, 
where he hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for the 
flames. And he stood before the people with a bald head and 
a white and flowing beard. He was so firm now when the 
worst was come, that he again declared against his recantation, 
and was so impressive and so undismayed,that a certain lord, who 
was one of the directors of the execution, called out to his men 
to make haste. When the fire was lighted, Cranmer, true to 
his latest word, stretched out his right hand, and crying out, 
" This hand hath offended ! " held it among the flames until it 
blazed and burned away. His heart was found entire among his 
ashes, and he left at last a memorable name in English history. 
Cardinal Pole celebrated the day by saying his first mass ; and 
next day he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in Cranmer's 
place. 

The queen's husband, who was now mostly abroad in his 
own dominions, and generally made a coarse jest of her to his 
more familiar courtiers, was at war with France, and came ovefi 
to se^k the assistance gf England. England was ver^ ur w"<J' n,| 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 



255 



to engage in a French war for his sake ; but it happened that 
the King of France, at this very time, aided a descent upon the 
EngHsh coast. Hence, war was declared, greatly to Philip's 
satisfaction ; and the queen raised a sum of money with which to 
carry it on, by every unjustifiable means in her power. It met 
with no profitable return ; for the French Duke of Guise sur- 
prised Calais, and the English sustained a complete defeat. 
The losses they met with in France greatly mortified the na- 
tional pride, and the queen never recovered the blow. 

There was a bad fever raging in England at this time ; and 
I am glad to write that the queen took it, and the hour of her 
death came. " When I am dead, and my body is opened," 
she said to those around her, "ye shall find Calais written on 
my heart." I should have thought, if anything were written 
on it, they would have found the words " Jane Gray, Hooper, 
Rogers, Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, and three hundred people 
burnt alive within four years of my wicked reign, including 
sixty women and forty little children." But it is enough that 
their deaths were written in heaven. 

The queen died on the 17th of November, 1558, after reign- 
ing not quite five years and a half, and in the forty-fourth year 
of her age. Cardinal Pole died of the same fever next day. 

As Bloody Queen Mary, this woman has become famous > 
and as Bloody Queen Mary she will ever be justly remembered 
with horror and detestation in Great Britain. Her memory 
has been held in such abhorrence, that some writers have arisen 
in later years to take her part, and to show that she was, upon 
the whole quite an amiable and cheerful sovereign ! " By their 
fruits ye shall know them," said our Saviour. The stake and 
the fire were the fruits of this reign, and you will judge this 
queen by nothing else. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 



There was great rejoicing all over the land when the lords 
of the council went down to Hatfield to hail the Princess Eliza- 
beth as the new queen of England. Weary of the barbarities 
of Mary's reign, the people looked with hope and gladness to 
the n^w sovereign. The nation seemed to v/ake from a horri' 



256 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



ble dream ; and heaven, so long hidden by the smoke of the 
fires that roasted men and women to death, appeared to brighten 
once more. 

Queen EHzabeth was five-and-twenty years of age when 
she rode through the streets of London, from the Tower to 
Westminster Abbey, to be crowned. Her countenance was 
strongly marked, but, on the whole, commanding and dignified; 
her hair was red, and her nose something too long and sharp 
for a woman's. She was not the beautiful creature her court- 
iers made out ; but she was well enough, and no doubt looked 
all the better for coming after the dark and gloomy Mary. 
She was well educated, but a roundabout writer, and rather a 
hard swearer and coarse talker. She was clever, but cunning 
and deceitful, and inherited much of her father's violent temper. 
I mention this now, because she has been so over-praised by 
one party, and so over-abused by another, that it is hardly pos- 
sible to understand the greater part of her reign without first 
understanding what kind of woman she really was. 

She began her reign with the great advantage of having a 
very wise and careful minister. Sir William Cecil, whom she 
afterwards made Lord Burleigh. Altogether, the people had 
greater reason for rejoicing than they usually had when there 
were processions in the streets ; and they were happy wit^ 
some reason. All kinds of shows and images were set up ; 
Gog and Magog were hoisted to the top of Temple Bar ; and 
(which was more to the purpose) the corporation dutifully pre- 
sented the young queen with the sum of a thousand marks in 
gold, — so heavy a present, that she was obliged to take it into 
her carriage with both hands. The coronation was a great 
success ; and on the next day one of the courtiers presented a 
petition to the new queen, praying that, as it was the custom to 
release some prisoner on such occasions, she would have the 
goodness to release the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John, and also the Apostle St. Paul, who had been for some 
time shut up in a strange language, so that the people could 
not get at them. 

To this the queen replied that it would be better first to 
inquire of themselves whether they desired to be released or 
not ; and, as a means of finding out, a great public discussion 
— a sort of religious tournament — was appointed to take place 
between certain champions of the two religions, in Westminster 
Abbey. You may suppose that it was soon made pretty clear 
to common sense, that for people to benefit by what they repeat 
©r readj it is rather necessary they shpuld upd^rstand some- 



ENGLAND UNDER EUZABETH. i^^ 

thing about it. Accordingly, a church service in plain English 
was settled, and other laws and regulations were made, com- 
pletely establishing the great work of the Reformation. The 
Romish bishops and champions were not harshly dealt with, all 
things considered ; and the queen's ministers were both prudent 
and merciful. 

The one great trouble of this reign, and the unfortunate 
cause of the greater part of such turmoil and bloodshed as oc- 
curred in it, was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. We will try to 
understand, in as few words as possible, who Mary was, what 
she was, and how she came to be a thorn in the royal pillow of 
Elizabeth. 

She was the daughter of the Queen Regent of Scotland, 
Mary of Guise. She had been married, when a mere child, to 
the dauphin, the son and heir of the King of France. The 
pope, who pretended that no one could rightfully wear the 
crown of England without his gracious permission, was strongly 
opposed to Elizabeth, who had not asked for the said gracious 
permission. And as Mary, Queen of Scots, would have in- 
herited the English crown in right of her birth, supposing the 
English parliament not to have altered the succession^ the pope 
himself, and most of the discontented who were followers of 
his, maintained that Mary was the rightful queen of England, 
and Elizabeth the wrongful queen. Mary being so closely con- 
nected with France, and France being jealous of England, 
there was far greater danger in this than there would have been 
if she had had no alliance with that great power. And when 
her young husband, on the death of his father, became Francis 
the Second, King of France, the matter grew very serious. For 
the young couple styled themselves King and Queen of Eng- 
land ; and the pope was disposed to help them by doing all the 
mischief he could. 

Now the reformed religion, under the guidance of a stern 
and powerful preacher named John Knox, and other such men, 
had been making fierce progress in Scotland. It was still a 
half-savage country, where there was a great deal of murdering 
and rioting continually going on ; and the reformers, instead of 
reforming those evils as they should have done, went to work 
in the ferocious old Scottish spirit, laying churches and chapels 
waste, pulling down pictures and altars, and knocking about 
the Gray Friars, and the Black Friars, and the White Friars, 
and the friars of all sorts of colors, in all directions. This ob- 
durate and harsh spirit of the Scottish reformers (the Scotch 
have always been rather a sullen and frowning people in relig- 



^^S A CmLD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ious matters) put up the blood of the Romish French court, 
and caused France to send troops over to Scotland, with the 
hope of setting the friars of all sorts of colors on their legs 
again ; of conquering that country first, and England after- 
wards, and so crushing the Reformation all to pieces. The 
Scottish reformers, who had formed a great league which they 
called The Congregation of the Lord, secretly represented to 
FJizabeth that if the reformed religion got the worst of it with 
them, it would be likely to get the worst of it in England too ; 
and thus Elizabeth, though she had a high notion of the rights 
of kings and queens to do anything they liked, sent an army to 
Scotland to support the reformers, who were in arms against 
their sovereign. All these proceedings led to a treaty of peace 
at Edinburgh, under which the French consented to depart 
from the kingdom. By a separate treaty, Mary and her young 
husband engaged to renounce their assumed title of King and 
Queen of England. But this treaty they never fulfilled. 

It happened soon after matters had got to this state, that 
the young French king died, leaving Mary a young widow. 
She was then invited by her Scottish subjects to return home 
and reign over them ; and, as she was not now happy where she 
was, she after a little time, complied. 

Elizabeth had been queen three years when Mary, Queen 
of Scots, embarked at Calais for her own rough, quarrelling 
country. As she came out of the harbor, a vessel was lost be- 
fore her eyes ; and she said, " O good God ! what an omen this 
is for such a voyage ! " She was very fond of France, and sat 
on the deck, looking back at it and weeping, until it was quite 
dark. When she went to bed, she directed to be called at day- 
break, if the French coast were still visible, that she might 
behold it for the last time. As it prov^ed to be a clear morning, 
this was done ; and she again wept for the country she was 
leavmg, and said many times, " Farewell, France ! Farewell, 
France ! I shall never see thee again ! " All this* was long 
remembered afterwards, as sorrowful and interesting in a fair 
young princess of nineteen. Indeed, I am afraid it gradually 
came, together with her distresses, to surround her with greater 
sympathy than she deserved. 

When she came to Scotland, and took up her abode at the 
palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, she found herself among un- 
couth strangers, and wild, uncomfortable customs, very different 
from her experiences in the court of France. The very people 
who were disposed to love her made her head ache, when she 
was tired out by her voyage, with a serenade of discordant 



. ENGLAND UNDER ELIZAMETH, 259 

music, — a fearful concert of bagpipes, I suppose, — and brought 
her and her train home to her palace on miserable little Scotch 
horses that appeared to be half starved. Among the people 
who were not disposed to love her, she found the powerful 
leaders of the Reformed Church, who were bitter upon her 
amusements, however innocent, and denounced music and 
dancing as works of the Devih John Knox himself often 
lectured her violently and angrily, and did much to make her 
life unhappy. All these reasons confirmed her old attachment 
to the Romish religion, and caused her, there is no doubt, most 
imprudently and dangerously, both for herself and for England 
too, to give a solemn pledge to the heads of the Romish Church, 
that, if she ever succeeded to the English crown, she would set 
up that religion again. In reading her unhappy history, you 
must always remember this ; and also that during her whole 
life she was constantly put forward against the queen, in some 
form or other, by the Romish party. 

That Elizabeth, on the other hand, was not inclined to like 
her, is pretty certain. Elizabeth was very vain and jealous, 
and had an extraordinary dislike to people being married. 
She treated Lady Catherine Grey, sister of the beheaded Lady 
Jane, with such shameful severity, for no other reason than her 
being secretly married, that she died, and her husband was 
ruined ; so, when a second marriage for Mary began to be 
talked about, probably Elizabeth disliked her more. Not that 
Elizabeth wanted suitors of her own ; for they started up from 
Spain, Austria, Sweden, and England, Her English lover at 
this time, and one whom she much favored too, was Lord Robert 
Dudley, Earl of Leicester — himself secretly married to Amy 
Robsart, the daughter of an English gentleman whom he was 
strongly suspected of causing to be murdered, down at his 
country-seat, Cumnor Hall, in Berkshire, that he might be free 
to marry the queen. Upon this story, the great writer, Sir 
Walter Scott, has founded one of his best romances. But if 
Elizabeth knew how to lead her handsome favorite on, for her 
own vanity and pleasure, she knew how to stop him for her own 
pride ; and his love, and all the other proposals, came to 
nothing. The queen always declared in good set speeches that 
she would never be married at all, but would live and die a 
maiden queen. It was a very pleasant and meritorious declara- 
tion, I suppose ; but it has been puffed and trumpeted so much, 
that I am rather tired of it myself. 

Divers princes proposed to marry Mary ; but the English 
court had reasons for being jealous of them all, and even pro- 



26o A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

posed, as a matter of policy, that she should marry that very 
Earl of Leicester who had aspired to be the husband of Eliz- 
abeth. At last, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox, and 
himself descended from the Royal Family of Scotland, went 
over, with Elizabeth's consent, to try his fortune at Holyrood. 
He was a tall simpleton, and could dance and play the guitar ; 
but I know of nothing else he could do, unless it were to get 
\ery drunk, and eat gluttonously, and make a contemptibU 
spectacle of himself in many mean and vain ways. However,^ 
he gained Mary's heart, not disdaining in the pursuit of hL 
object to ally himself with one of her secretaries, David Rizzio, 
who had great influence with her. He soon married the queeh. 
This marriage does not say much for her ; but what foKowed 
will presently say less. 

Mary's brother, the Earl of Murray, and head of the Prot- 
estant party in Scotland, had opposed this mariiage, partly, 
on religious grounds, and partly, perhaps, from personal dislike 
of the very contemptible bridegroom. When it had taken 
place, through Mary's gaining over to it the more powerful of 
the lords about her, she banished Murray for his pains; and 
when he and some other nobles rose in arms to support the 
reformed religion, she herself, within a month of her wedding- 
day, rode against them in armor with ioaded pistols in her 
saddle. Driven out of Scotland, they presented themselves 
befoi-e Elizabeth, who called them traitors in public, and assisted 
them in private, according to her crafty nature. 

Mary had been married but a little while, when she began 
to hate her husband, who, in his turn, began to hate that David 
Rizzio, with whom he had leagued to gain her favor, and whom 
he now believed to be her lover. He hated Rizzio to that ex- 
tent that he made a compact with Lord Ruthven and three other 
lords to get rid of him by murdev. The wicked agreement they 
made in solemn secrecy upon the isi of March, 1556, and, on the 
night of Saturday, the 9th, the conspirators were brought by 
Darnley up a private staircase, dark and steep, into a range of 
rooms where they knew that Mary was sitting at supper with her 
sister^ Lady Argyle, and this doomed man. When they went 
into the room, Darnley took the queen round the waist, and Lord 
Ruthven, who had risen from a bed of sickness to do this 
murder, came in, gaunt and ghastly, leaning on two men. 
Rizzio ran behind the queen for shelter and protection. " Let 
him come out of the room," said Ruthven. " He shall not 
leave the room," replied the queen , " I read his danger in your 
face, and '-^^ i^& my will tb&t he remain here." They then set 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH, 261 

updli him, struggled with him, overturned the table, dragged 
him out, and killed him with fifty-six stabs. When the queen 
heard that he was dead, she said, " No more tears. 1 will think 
now of revenge ! " 

Within a day or two, she gained her husband over, and pre- 
vailed on the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators, and fly 
with her to Dunbar. There he issued a proclamation, auda- 
ciously and falsely denying that he had any knowledge of the 
late bloody business ; and there they were joined by the Earl 
Bothwell and some other nobles. With their help, they raised 
eight thousand men, returned to Edinburgh, and drove the 
assassins into England, Mary soon afterwards gave birth to a 
son, — still thinking of revenge. 

That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband 
after his late cowardice and treachery than she had had before 
was natural enough. There is little doubt that she now began 
to love Bothwell instead, and to plan with him means of get- 
ting rid of Darnley. Bothwell had such power over her, that 
he induced her even to pardon the assassins of Rizzio. The 
arrangements for the christening of the young prince were in- 
trusted to him, and he was one of the most important people 
at the ceremony, where the child was named James ; Elizabeth 
being his godmother, though not present at the occasion. A 
week afterwards, Darnley, who had left Mary and gone to his 
father's house at Glasgow, being taken ill with the small-pox, 
she sent her own physician to attend him. But there is reason 
to apprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and 
that she knew what was doing, when Bothwell within another 
month proposed to one of the late conspirators against Rizzio, 
to murder Darnley, ''for that it was the queen's mind that 
he should be taken away." It is certain that on that very 
day she wrote to her ambassador in France, complaining 
of him, and yet went immediately to Glasgow, feigning to be 
very anxious about him, and to love him very much. If she 
wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her heart's 
content ; for she induced him to go back with her to Edin- 
burgh, and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house out- 
side the city called the Kirk of Field. Here he lived for about 
a week. One Sunday night, she remained with him until ten 
o'clock, and then left him to go to Holyrood to be present at 
an entertainment given in celebration of the marriage of one of 
her favorite servants. At two o'clock in the morning the city 
was shaken by a great explosion, and the Kirk of Field was 
blown to atoms. 



262 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Darnley's body was found next day lying under a tree at 
some distance. How it came there, undisfigured and un- 
scorched by gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so 
clumsily and strangely committed, it is impossible to discover. 
The deceitful character of Mary, and the deceitful character of 
Elizabeth, have rendered almost every part of their joint history 
uncertain and obscure. But I fear that Mary was unquestion 
ably a party to her husband's murder, and that this was the 
revenge she had threatened. The Scotch people universally 
believed it. Voices cried out in the streets of Edinburgh in 
the dead of the night, for justice on the murderess. Placards 
were posted by unknown hands in the public places, denounc- 
ing Bothwell as the murderer, and the queen as his accomplice ; 
and when he afterwards married her (though himself already 
married), previously making a show of taking her prisoner by 
force, the indignation of the people knew no bounds. The wo- 
men particularly are described as having been quite frantic 
against the queen, and to have hooted and cried after her in 
the streets with terrific vehemence. 

Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and 
wife had lived together but a month, when they were separated 
forever by the success of a band of Scotch nobles who associ- 
ated against them for the protection of the young prince, whom 
Bothwell had vainly endeavored to lay hold of, and whom he 
would certainly have murdered, if the Earl of Mar, in whose 
hands the boy was, had not been firmly and honorably faithful 
to his trust. Before this angry power, Bothwell fled abroad, 
where he died, a prisoner and mad, nine miserable years after- 
wards. Mary, being found by the associated lords to deceive 
them at every turn, was sent a prisoner to Lochleven Castle \ 
which, as it stood in the midst of a lake, could only be ap- 
proached by boat. Here one Lord Lindsay, who was so much 
of a brute that the nobles would have done better if ihey had 
chosen a mere gentleman for their messenger, made her sign 
her abdication, and appoint Murray Regent of Scotland. Here, 
too, Murray saw her in a sorrowing and humbled state. 

She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, 
dull prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, 
and the moving shadows of the water on the room-walls ; but 
she could not rest there, and more than once tried to escape. 
The first time she had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes 
of her own washerwoman ; but, putting up her hand to prevent 
one of the boatmen from liftmg her veil, the men suspected 
ber, seeing how white it was, and rowed her back again. A 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 263 

short time afterwards, her fascinating manners enlisted in her 
cause a boy in the castle, called the little Douglas, who, while 
the family were at supper, stole the keys of the great gate, went 
softly out with the queen, locked the gate on the outside, and 
rowed her away across the lake, sinking the keys as they went 
along. On the opposite shore she was met by another Douglas, 
and some few lords ; and, so accompanied, rode away on horse- 
back to Hamilton, where they raised three thousand men. 
Here she issued a proclamation declaring that the abdication 
she had signed in her prison was illegal, and requiring the re- 
gent to yield to his lawful queen. Being a steady soldier, and 
in no way discomposed, although he was without an army, 
Murray pretended to treat with her, until he had collected a 
force about half equal to her own, and then he gave her battle. 
In one quarter of an hour he cut down all her hopes. She had 
another weary ride on horseback of sixty long Scotch miles, 
and took shelter at Dundrennan Abbey, whence she fled for 
safety to Elizabeth's dominions. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, came to England, to her own ruin, 
the trouble of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many, 
in 1568. How she left it and the world, nineteen years after- 
wards, we have now to see 

Second Part. 

When Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived in England, without 
money, and even without any other clothes than those she 
wore, she wrote to Elizabeth, representing herself as an inno- 
cent and injured piece of royalty, and entreating her assistance 
to oblige her Scottish subjects to take her back again and obey 
her. But as her character was already known in England to 
be a very different one from what she made it out to be, she 
was told in answer that she must first clear herself. Made 
uneasy by this condition, Mary, rather than stay in England, 
would have gone to Spain, or to France, or would even have 
gone back to Scotland. But, as her doing either would have 
been likely to trouble England afresh, it was decided that she 
should be detained here. She first came to Carlisle, and after 
that was moved about from castle to castle, as was considered 
necessary ; but England she never left again. 

After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing 
herself, Mary, advised by Lord Herries, her best friend in Eng- 
land, agreed to answer the charges against her, if the Scottish 
noblemeii who rnad^ them would attend to maintain them be 



^64 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

fore such English noblemen as Elizabeth might appoint fot 
that purpose. Accordingly, such an assembly, under the name 
of a conference, met, first at York, and afterwards at Hampton 
Court. In its presence Lord Lennox, Darnley's father, openly 
charged Mary with the murder of his son ; and whatever Mary's 
friends may now say or write in her behalf, there is no doubt, 
that when her brother, Murray, produced against her a casket 
containing certain guilty letters and verses which he stated to 
have passed between her and Bothwell, she withdrew from the 
inquiry. Consequently, it is to be supposed that she was then 
considered guilty by those who had the best opportunities of 
judging of the truth, and that the feeling which afterwards arose 
in her behalf was a very generous but not a very reasonable one. 

However, the Duke of Norfolk, an honorable but rather 
weak nobleman, partly because Mary was captivating, partly 
because he was ambitious, partly because he was over-per- 
suaded by artful plotters against Elizabeth, conceived a strong 
idea that he would like to marry the Queen of Scots, though 
he was a little frightened, too, by the letters in the casket. 
This idea being secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen 
of Elizabeth's court, and even by the favorite Earl of Leicester 
(because it was objected to by other favorites who were his 
rivals), Mary expressed her approval of it, and the King of 
France and the King of Spain are supposed to have done the 
same. It was not so quietly planned, though, but that it came 
to Elizabeth's ears, who warned the duke " to be careful what 
sort of a pillow he was going to lay his head upon." He made 
a humble reply at the time, but turned sulky soon afterwards, 
and, being considered dangerous, was sent to the Tower. 

Thus from the moment of Mary's coming to England she 
began to be the centre of plots and miseries. 

A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these ; 
and it was only checked by many executions and much blood- 
shed. It was followed by a great conspiracy of the pope and 
some of the Catholic sovereigns of Europe to depose Eliza- 
beth, place Mary on the throne, and restore the unreformed 
religion. It is almost impossible to doubt that Mary knew and 
approved of this ; and the pope himself was so hot in the mat- 
ter, that he issued a bull, in which he openly called Elizabeth 
the " pretended Queen " of England, excommunicated her, and 
excommunicated all her subjects who should continue to obey 
her. A copy of this miserable paper got into London, and was 
found one morning publicly posted on the Bishop of London's 
gate. A great hue and cry being raised, another copy was 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 265 

found in the chamber of a student of Lincohi's Inn, who con- 
fessed, being put upon the rack, that he had received it from one 
John Felton, a rich gentleman who lived across the Thames 
near Southwark. This John Felton, being put upon the rack 
too, confessed that he had posted the placard on the bishop's 
gate. For this offence he was, within four days, taken to St. 
Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and quartered. As to 
the pope's bull, the people by the Reformation having thrown 
off the pope, did not care much, you may suppose, for the 
pope's throwing off them. It was a mere dirty piece of paper, 
and not half so powerful as a street-ballad. 

On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial, the 
poor Duke of Norfolk was released. It would have been well 
for him if he had kept away from the Tower evermore, and 
from the snares that had taken him there. But even while he 
was in that dismal place he corresponded with Mary ; and, as 
soon as he was out of it, he began to plot again. Being dis- 
covered in correspondence with the pope, with a view to a ris- 
ing in England which should force Elizabeth to consent to his 
marriage with Mary, and to repeal the laws against the Catho- 
lics, he was re-committed to the Tower, and brought to trial. 
He was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the lords who 
tried him, and was sentenced to the block. 

It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and 
between opposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a 
humane woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of 
shedding the blood of people of great name who were popular 
in the country. Twice she commanded and countermanded 
the execution of this duke ; and it did not take place until five 
months after his trial. The scaffold was erected on Tower 
Hill ; and there he died like a brave man. He refused to have 
his eyes bandaged, saying that he was not at all afraid of 
death ; and he admitted the justice of his sentence, and was 
mu(^i regretted by the people. 

Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from 
disproving her guilt, she was very careful never to do anything 
that would admit it. All such proposals as were made to her 
by Elizabeth for her release required that admission in some 
form or other, and therefore came to nothing. Moreover, both 
women being artful and treacheroue, and neither ever trusting 
the other, it was not likely that they could ever make an agree- 
ment. So the Parliament, aggravated by what the pope had 
done, made new and strong laws against the spreading of the 
Catholic religion in England, and declared it treason in any one 



2^6 ^ CmLD'S HISTORY OP ENGLAND. 

to say that the queen and her successors were not the lawful 
sovereigns of England. It would have done more than this but 
for Elizabeth's moderation. 

Since the Reformation there had come to be three great 
sects of religious people — or people who called themselves so 
— in England ; that is to say, those who belonged to the re- 
formed church, those who belonged to the unreformed church, 
and those who were called the Puritans, because they said that 
they wanted to have everything very pure and plain in all the 
Church service. These last were for the most part an uncom- 
fortable people, v/ho thought it highly meritorious to dress in 
hideous manner, talk through their noses, and oppose all harm- 
less enjoyments. But they were powerful too, and very much 
in earnest ; and they were one and all the determined enemies 
of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant feeling in England was 
further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which Prot- 
estants were exposed in France and in the Netherlands. Scores 
of thousands of them were put to death in those countries with 
every cruelty that can be imagined ; and at last, in the autumn 
of the year 1575, one of the greatest barbarities ever committed 
in the world took place at Paris. 

It is called in history. The Massacre of St. Bartholemew, 
because it took place on St. Bartholemew's Eve. The day fell 
on Saturday, the 23d of August. On that day all the great 
leaders of the Protestants (who were there called Huguenots) 
were assembled together, for the purpose, as was represented 
to them, of doing honor to the marriage of their chief, the 
young King of Navarre, with the sister of Charles the Ninth, a 
miserable young king who then occupied the French throne. 
This dull creature was made to believe by his mother, and 
other fierce Catholics about him, that the Huguenots meant to 
take his life ; and he was persuaded to give secret orders, that, 
on the tolling of a great bell, they should be fallen upon by an 
overpowering force of armed men, and slaughtered, wherever 
they could be found. When the appointed hour was close at 
hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken 
into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. 
The moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. Dur- 
ing all that night and the two next days, they broke into the 
houses, fired the houses, shot and stabbed the Protestants, 
men, women, and children, and flung their bodies into the 
streets. They were shot at in the streets as they passed along, 
and their blood ran down the gutters. Upwards of ten ^thou- 
sand Protestants were killed in Paris alone \ in all France, foul 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 267 

or five times that number. To return thanks to Heaven for 
these diabolical murders, the pope and his train actually went 
in public procession at Rome ; and, as if this were not shame 
enough for them, they had a medal struck to commemorate the 
event. But, however comfortable the wholesale murders were 
to these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect upon 
the doll-king. I am happy to state that he never knew a mo- 
ment's peace afterwards ; that he was continually crying out 
that he saw the Huguenots covered with blood and wounds 
falling dead before him ; and that he died within a year, shriek- 
ing and yelling and raving to that degree, that, if all the popes 
who had ever lived had been rolled into one, they would noC 
have afforded his guilty Majesty the slightest consolation. - 

When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, 
it made a powerful impression indeed upon the people. If they 
began to run a little wild against the Catholics at about this 
time, this fearful reason for it, coming so soon after the days 
of Bloody Queen Mary, must be remembered in their excuse. 
The court was not quite so honest as the people ; but perhaps 
it sometimes is not. It received the French ambassador, with 
all the lords and ladies dressed in deep mourning, and keeping 
a profound silence. Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage which 
he had made to Elizabeth only two days before the eve of St. 
Bartholomew, on behalf of the Duke" of Alengon, the French 
king's brother, a boy of seventeen, still went on ; while, on the 
other hand, in her usual crafty Way, the Queen secretly supplied, 
the Huguenots with money and weapons. 

I must say, that for a queen who made all those fine speeches, 
of which I have confessed myself to be rather tired, about liv- 
ing and dying a maiden queen, Elizabeth was " going " to be 
married pretty often. Besides always having some English 
favorite or other whom she by turns encoi^raged, and swore at, 
and knocked about, — for the maiden quc^wiu was very free with 
her fists, — she held this French duke, oil and on, through sev- 
eral years. When he at last came over to England, the marriage 
articles were actually drawn up, and it was settled that the 
wedding should take place m six weeks. The Queen was then 
so bent upon it, that she prosecuted a poor Puritan named 
Stubbs, and a poor bookseller named Page, for writing and 
publishing a pamphlet against it. Their right hands were 
chopped off for this crime ; and poor Stubbs, more loyal than I 
should have been myself under the circumstances, immediately 
pulled off his hat with his left hand, and cried, " God save the 
Queen ! " Stubbs was cruelly treated ; for the marriage neve/ 
12 



g68 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

took place after all, though the queen pledged herself to the 
duke with a ring from her own finger. He went awa}^, no bet- 
ter than he came, when the courtship had lasted some ten years 
altogether ; and he died a couple of years afterwards, mourned 
by Elizabeth, who appears to have been really fond of him. It 
is not much to her credit ; for he was a bad enough member of 
a bad family. 

To return to the Catholics. There arose two orders of 
priests who were very busy in England, and who were much 
dreaded. These were the Jesuits (who were everywhere in all 
sorts of disguises) and the Seminary Priests. The people had 
a great horror of the first, because they were known to have 
taught that murder was lawful if it were done with an object of 
which they approved ; and they had a great horror of the second, 
because they came to teach the old religion, and to be the suc- 
cessors of "Queen Mary's priests," as those yet lingering in 
England were called, when they should die out. The severest 
laws were made against them, and were most unmercifully exe- 
cuted. Those who sheltered them in their houses often suf- 
fered heavily for what was an act of humanity ; and the rack, 
that cruel torture which tore men's limbs asunder, was con- 
stantly kept going. What these unhappy men confessed, or 
what was ever confessed by any one under that agony, must 
always be received with great doubt, as it is certain that people 
have frequently owned to the most absurd and impossible crimes 
to escape such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt it to 
have been proved by papers, that there were many plots, both 
among the Jesuits, and with France, and with Scotiai^d, and 
with Spain, for the destruction of Queen Elizabeth, for the 
placing of Mary on the throne, and for the revival of the old 
religion. 

If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, 
there were, as I have said, good reasons for it. When the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew was yet fresh in their recollection, 
a great Protestant Dutch hero, the Prince of Orange, was shot 
by an assassin, who confessed that he had been kept and trained 
for the purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, in this 
surprise and distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign ; 
but she declined the honor, and sent them a small army instead, 
under the command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although a 
capital court favorite, was not much of a general. He did so 
little in Holland, that his campaign there would probably have 
been forgotten, but for its occasioning the death of one of the 
best writers, the best knights, and the best gentlemen, of thflt 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 269 

cr any age. This was Sir Philip Sidney, who was wounded by 
a musket-ball in the thigh as he mounted a fresh horse, after 
having had his own killed under him. He had to ride back 
wounded, a long distance, and was very faint with fatigue and 
loss of blood, when some water for which he had eagerly asked, 
was handed to him. But he was so good and gentle even then, 
that seeing a poor, badly wounded common soldier lying on the 
*rround, looking at the water with longing eyes, he said, " Thy 
necessity is greater than mine," and gave it up to him. This 
touching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as 
any incident in history, — is as famous, far and wide, as the 
blood-stained Tower of London, with its axe and block, and 
murders out of number. So delightful is an act of true human- 
ity, and so glad are mankind to remember it ! 

At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. 
I suppose the people never did live under such continual ter- 
rors as those by which they were possessed now, of Catholic 
risings, and burnings, and poisonings, and I don't know what. 
Still, we must always remember that they lived near and close 
to awful realities of that kind, and that with their experience it 
was not difficult to believe in any enormity. The government 
had the same fear, and did not take the best means of discov- 
ering the truth ; for besides torturing the suspected, it employed 
paid spies, who will always lie for their own profit. It even 
made some of the conspiracies it brought to light, by sending 
false letters to disaffected people, inviting them to join in pre- 
tended plots, which they too readily did. 

But one great real plot was at length discovered ; and it 
ended the career of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest 
named Ballard, and a Spanish soldier named Savage, set on 
and encouraged by certain French priests, imparted a design 
to one Antony Babington — a gentleman of fortune in Derby- 
shire, who had been for some time a secret agent of Mary's — • 
for murdering the queen. Babington then confided the scheme 
to some other Catholic gentlemen, who were his friends, and 
they joined in it heartily. They were vain, weak-headed young 
men, ridiculously confident, and preposterously proud of their 
plan ; for they got a gimcrack painting made, of the six choice 
spirits who were to murder Elizabeth, with Babington, in an at- 
titude, for the centre figure. Two of their number, however, 
one of whom was a priest, kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, Sir 
Francis Walsingham, acquainted with the whole project from 
the first. The conspirators were completely deceived to the 
fina! point, when Babington gave Savage, because he was 



ayo ^ CmLD'S HISTORY OF EN-GLAND. 

shabby, a ring from his finger, and some money from his purse, 
wherewith to buy himself new clothes in which to kill the queen. 
Walsingham, having then full evidence against the whole band, 
and two letters of Mary's besides, resolved to seize them. Sus- 
pecting something wrong, they stole out of the city, one by one, 
and hid themselves in St. John's Wood, and other places, which 
really were hiding-places then ; but they were all taken, and all 
executed. When they were seized, a gentleman was sent from 
court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her being involved ip 
the discovery. Her friends have complained that she was kept 
in very hard and severe custody. It does not appear verj 
likely, for she was going out a-hunting that very morning. 

Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in 
France who had good information of what was secretly doing, 
that, in holding Mary alive, she held "the wolf who would de- 
vour her." The Bishop of London had, more lately, given the 
queen's favorite minister the advice in writing, " forthwith to 
cut off the Scottish queen's head." The question now was, 
what to do with her. The Earl of Leicester wrote a little note 
home from Holland, recommending that she should be quietly 
poisoned ; that noble favorite having accustomed his mind, it 
is possible, to remedies of that nature. His black advice, how- 
ever, v/as disregarded ; and she was brought to trial at Fother- 
ingay Castle in Northamptonshire, before a tribunal of forty, 
composed of both religions. There, and in the Star Chamber 
at Westminster, the trial lasted a fortnight. She defended her- 
self with great ability, but could only deny the confessions that 
had been made by Babington and others ; could only call her 
own letters, produced against her by her own secretaries, for- 
geries ; and, in short, could only deny everything. She was 
found guilty, and declared to have incurred the penalty of 
death. The Parliament met, approved the sentence, and prayed 
the queen to have it executed. The queen replied that she re- 
quested them to consider whether no means could be found of 
saving Mary's life without endangering her own. The Parlia- 
ment rejoined. No ; and the citizens illuminated their houses 
and lighted bonfires, in token of their joy that all these plots 
and troubles were to be ended by the death of the Queen of 
Scots. 

She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter 
to the Queen of England, making three entreaties : first, that 
she might be buried in France ; secondly, that she might not 
be executed in secret, but before her servants and some others ; 
thirdly, that, after her death, her servants should not be mo- 



gmiAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 271 

lested, but should be suffered to go home with the legacies she 
left them. It was an affecting letter ; and Elizabeth shed tears 
over it, but sent no answer. Then came a special ambassador 
from France, and another from Scotland, to intercede for Mary's 
life j and then the nation began to clamor, more and more, for 
her death. 

What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can 
never be known now ; but I strongly suspect her of only wish- 
ing one thing more than Mary's death, and that was to keep 
free of the blame of it. On the ist of February, 1587, Lord 
Burleigh having drawn out the. warrant for the execution, the 
queen sent to the Secretary Davison to bring it to her that 
she might sign it ; which she did. Next day, when Davison 
told her it was sealed, she angrily asked him why such haste 
was necessary. Next day but one she joked about it, and swore 
a little. Again next day but one, she seemed to complain that 
it was not yet done ; but still she would not be plain with those 
about her. So, on the 7th, the Earls of Kent and Shrewsbury, 
with the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, came with the warrant 
to Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of Scots to prepare for 
death. 

When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary made 
a frugal supper, drank to her servants, read over her will, went 
to bed, slept for some hours, and then arose and passed the re- 
mainder of the night saying prayers. In the morning she 
dressed herself in her best clothes ; and at eight o'clock, when 
the sheriff came for her to her chapel, took leave of her ser- 
vants who were there assembled praying with her, and went 
down stairs, carrying a Bible in one hand and a crucifix in the 
other. Two of her women and four of her men were allowed 
to be present in the hall, where a low scaffold, only two feet 
from the ground, was erected and covered with black ; and 
where the executioner from the Tower and his assistant stood, 
dressed in black velvet. The hall was full of people. While 
the sentence was being read, she sat upon a stool j and when 
it was finished, she again denied her guilt, as she had done be- 
fore. The Earl of Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in 
their Protestant zeal, made some very unnecessary speeches to 
her ; to which she replied she died in the Catholic religion, and 
they need not trouble themselves about that matter. When 
her head and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she 
said that she had not been used to be undressed by such hands, 
or before so much company. Finally, one of her women fastened 
a cloth over her face ; and she laid her neck upon the block, 



272 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and repeated more than once in Latin, " Into thy hands, O 
Lord ! I commend my spirit." Some say her head was struck 
off in two blows, some say in three. However that be, when 
it was held up, streaming with blood, the real hair beneath the 
false hair she had long worn was seen to be as gray as that of 
a woman of seventy, though she was at that time only in her 
iorty-sixth year. All her beauty was gone. 

But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered 
under her dress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, 
and who lay down beside her headless body when all her 
earthly sorrows were over. 

Third Part. 

On its being formally made known to Elizabeth that the 
sentence had been executed on the Queen of Scots, she showed 
the utmost grief and rage, drove her favorites from her with 
violent indignation, and sent Davison to the Tower; from 
which place he was only released in the end by paying an im- 
mense fine, which completely ruined him. Elizabeth not only 
over-acted her part in making these pretences, but most basely 
reduced to poverty one of her faithful servants for no other 
fault than obeying her commands. 

James, King of Scotland, Mary's son, made a show likewise 
of being very angry on the occasion ; but he was a pensioner 
of England to the amount of five thousand pounds a 3^ear ; 
and he had known very little of his mother, and he possibly 
regarded her as the murderer of his father, and he soon took 
it quietly. 

Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened to do greater 
things than ever had been done yet, to set up the Catholic re- 
ligion, and punish Protestant England. Elizabeth, hearing 
that he and the Prince of Parma were making great prepara- 
tions for this purpose, in order to be beforehand with them sent 
out Admiral Drake (a famous navigator, who had sailed about 
the world, and had already brought great plunder from Spain) 
to the port of Cadiz, where he burnt a hundred vessels full of 
stores. This great loss obliged the Spaniards to put off the 
invasion for a year ; but it was none the less formidable for 
that, amounting to one hundred and thirty ships, Kiineteen thou- 
sand soldiers, eight thousand sailors, two thousand slaves, and 
between two and three thousand great guns. England was not 
idle in making ready to resist this great force. All the men be- 
tween sixteen years old and sixty were trained and drilled j the 



ENGLAND UNDER ELIZABETH. 273 

national fleet of ships (in number only thirty-four at first) was 
enlarged by public contributions, and by private ships, fitted 
out by noblemen ; the city of London, of its own accord, fur- 
nished double the number of ships and men that it was re- 
quired to provide ; and, if ever the national spirit was up in 
England, it was up all through the country to resist the Span- 
iards. Some of the queen's advisers were for seizing the prin- 
cipal English Catholics and putting them to death; but th^ 
queen — who, to her honor, used to say that she would nevei 
believe any ill of her subjects which a parent would not be- 
lieve of her own children — rejected the advice, and only con- 
fined a few of those who were the most suspected in the fens 
in Lincolnshire. The great body of Catholics deserved this 
confidence ; for they behaved most loyally, nobly, and bravely. 
So, with all England firing up like one strong, angry man, 
and with both sides of the Thames fortified, and with the sol- 
diers under arms, and with the sailors in their ships, the coun- 
try waited for the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, which 
was called The Invincible Armada. The queen herself, riding 
in armor on a white horse, and the Earl of Essex and the Earl 
of Leicester holding her bridle-rein, made a brave speech to 
the troops at Tilbury Fort, opposite Gravesend, which was re- 
ceived with such enthusiasm as is seldom known. Then came 
the Spanish Armada into the English Channel, saiHng along in 
the form of a half-moon, of such great size that it was seven 
miles broad. But the English were quickly upon it ; and woe 
then to all the Spanish ships that dropped a little out of the half- 
moon, for the English took them instantly ! And it soon ap- 
peared that the great Armada was anything but invincible ; 
for, on a summer night, bold Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships 
right into the midst of it. In terrible consternation, the Span- 
iards tried to get out to sea, and so became dispersed ; the 
English pursued them at a great advantage. A storm came 
on, and drove the Spaniards among rocks and shoals ; and the 
swift end of the invincible fleet was, that it lost thirty great 
ships and ten thousand men, and defeated, and disgraced, 
sailed home again. Being afraid to go by the English Chan- 
nel, it sailed all round Scotland and Ireland ; some of the 
ships getting cast away on the latter coast in bad weather, the 
Irish, who were a kind of savages, plundered those vessels, and 
killed their crews. So ended this great attempt to invade and 
conquer England. And I think it will be a long time before 
any other invincible fleet, coming to England with the same 
object, will fare much better than the Spanish Armada. 



274 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



Though the Spanish king had had this bitter taste of Eng« 
lish bravery, he was so little the wiser for it, as still to enter- 
tain his old designs, and even to conceive the absurd idea of 
placing his daughter on the English throne. But the Earl of 
Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Howard, and some 
other distinguished leaders, put to sea from Plymouth, entered 
the port of Cadiz once more, obtained a complete victory over 
the shipping assembled there, and got possession of the town. 
In obedience to the queen's express instructions, they behaved 
with great humanity ; and the principal loss of the Spaniards 
was a vast sum of money which they had to pay for ransom. 
This was one of many gallant achievements on the sea, effected 
in this reign. Sir Walter Raleigh himself, after marrying a 
maid of honor, and giving offence to the maiden queen thereby, 
had already sailed to South America in search of gold. 

The Earl of Leicester was now dead ; and so was Sir 
Thomas Walsingham, whom Lord Burleigh was soon to follow. 
The principal favorite was the Earl of Essex, a spirited and 
handsome man, a favorite with the people too, as well as with 
the queen, and possessed of many admirable qualities. It was 
much debated at court whether there should be peace with 
Spain, or no j and he was very urgent for war. He also tried 
hard to have his own way in the appointment of a deputy to 
govern in Ireland. One day, while this question was in dis- 
pute, he hastily took offence, and turned his back upon the 
queen ; as a gentle reminder of which impropriety, the queen 
gave him a tremendous box on the ear, and told him to go to 
the devil. He went home instead, and did not reappear at 
court for half a year or so, when he and the queen were recon- 
ciled, though never (as some suppose) thoroughly. 

From this time the fate of the Earl of Essex and that of the 
queen seemed to be blended together. The Irish were still 
perpetually quarrelling and fighting among themselves ; and 
he went over to Ireland as lord-lieutenant, to the great joy of 
his enemies (Sir Walter Raleigh among the rest), M'ho were 
glad to have so dangerous a rival far off. Not being by any 
means successful there, and knowing that his enemies would 
take advantage of that circurhstance to injure him with the 
queen, he came home again, though against her orders. The 
queen, being taken by surprise when he appeared before her, 
gave him her hand to kiss, and he was overjoyed, though it was 
not a very lovely hand by this time ; but, in the course of the 
game day, she ordered him to confine himself to his room, and 
two or three days afterwards had him taken into custody. With 



ENGLAND UNDEF ELIZABETH. 



27S 



the same sort of caprice,- — and as capricious an old woman she 
now was as ever wore a crown, or a head either, — she sent him 
broth from her own table on his falUng ill from anxiety, and 
cried about him. 

He was a man who could find comfort and occupation in 
his books, and he did so for a time ; not the least happy lime, 
I daresay, of his life. But it happened, unfortunately for him, 
that he held a monopoly in sweet wines, which means that no- 
body could sell them without purchasing his permission. This 
right, which was only for a term, expiring, he applied to have 
it renewed. The queen refused, with the rather strong observa- 
tion, — but she did make strong observations, — that an unruly 
beast must be stinted in his food. Upon this, the angry earl, 
who had been already deprived of many offices, thought him- 
self in danger of complete ruin, and turned against the queen, 
whom he called a vain old woman, who had grown as crooked 
in her mind as she had in her figure. These uncomplimentary 
expressions the ladies of the court immediately snapped up, 
and carried to the queen, whom they did not put in a better 
temper, you may believe. The same court ladies, when they 
had . beautiful dark hair of their own, used to wear false red 
hair, to be like the queen. So they were not very high-spirited 
ladies, however high in rank. 

The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and some friends of 
his who used to meet at Lord Southampton's house, was to ob- 
tain possession of the queen, and oblige her by force to dismiss 
her ministers, and change her favorites. On Saturday, the 7th 
of February, 1601, the council, suspecting this, summoned the 
earl to come before them. He, pretending to be ill, declined. 
It was then settled among his friends, that as the next day 
would be Sunday, when many of the citizens usually assembled 
at the Cross by St. Paul's Cathedral, he should make one bold 
effort to induce them to rise, and follow him to the palace. 

So, on the Sunday morning, he and a small body of ad- 
herents started out of his house,— Essex House by the Strand, 
with steps to the river, — having first shut up in it, as prisoners, 
some members of the council Vv^ho came to examine him, and 
hurried into the city with the earl at their head, crying out, 
" For the queen ! for the queen ! A plot is laid for my life." 
No one heeded them however ; and, when they came to St, 
Paul's, there were no citizens there. In the mean time the 
prisoners at Essex House had been released by one of the 
earl's own friends; he had' been promptly proclaimed a traitor 
in the city itself ; and the streets were barricaded with carts, 



276 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

and guarded by soldiers. The earl got back to his house b]f 
water, with difficulty ; and, after an attempt to defend his house 
against the troops and cannon by which it was surrounded, 
gave himself up that night. He was brought to trial on the 
19th, and found guilty ; on the 25th he was executed on Tower 
Hill, where he died, at thirty-four years old, both courageously 
and penitently. His stepfather suffered with him. His enemy, 
Sir Walter Raleigh, stood near the scaffold all the time, but 
not so near as we shall see him stand, before we finish his his- 
tory. 

In this case, as in the cases of the Duke of Norfolk and 
Mary, Queen of Scots, the queen had commanded and counter- 
manded, and again commanded the execution. It is probable 
that the death of her young and gallant favorite, in the prime 
of his good qualities, was never off her mind afterwards ; but 
she held out, the same vain, obstinate, and capricious woman, 
for another year. Then she danced before her court on a state 
occasion, and cut, I should think, a mighty ridiculous figure, 
doing so in an immense ruff, stomacher, and wig, at seventy 
years old. For another year still, she held out, but without 
any more dancing, and as a moody, sorrowful, broken creature. 
At last, on the loth of March, 1603, having been ill of a very 
bad cold, and made worse by the death of the Countess of 
Nottingham, who was her intimate friend, she fell into a stupor, 
and was supposed to be dead. She recovered her conscious- 
ness, however, and then nothing would induce her to go to 
bed ; for she said that she knew that if she did, she should 
never get up again. There she lay for ten days, on cushions 
on the floor, without any food, until the lord admiral got her 
into bed at last, partly by persuasions and partly by main force. 
When they asked her who should succeed her, she repHed that 
her seat had been the seat of kings, and that she would have 
for her successor, " No rascal's son, but a king's." Upon this, 
the lords present stared at one another, and took the liberty of 
asking whom she meant -, to which she replied, " Whom should 
I mean, but our cousin of Scotland ? " This was on the 23d 
of March. They asked her once again that day after she was 
speechless, whether she was still in the same mind .? She 
struggled in her bed, and joined her hands over her head in 
the form of a crown, as the only reply she could make. At 
three o'clock next morning, she very quietly died, in the forty- 
fifth year of her reign. 

That reign had been a glorious one, and is made forevet 
memorable by the distinguished men who flourished in it 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST, 377 

Apart from the great voyagers, statesmen, and scholars, whom 
it produced, the names of Bacon, Spenser, and Shakespeare 
will always be remembered with pride and veneration by the 
civilized world, and will always impart (though with no great 
reason perhaps) some portion of their lustre to the name of 
Elizabeth herself. It was a great reign for discovery, for com- 
merce, and for English enterprise and spirit in [general. It was 
a great reign for the Protestant religion, and ior the reforma- 
tion which made England free. The queen was very popular, 
and, in her progresses, or journeys about her dominions, was 
everywhere received with the liveliest joy. I think the truth 
is, that she was not half so good as she had been made out, 
and not half so bad as she had been made out. She had her 
fine qualities ; but she was coarse, capricious, and treacherous, 
and had all the faults of an excessively vain young woman long 
after she was an old one. On the whole, she had a great deal 
too much of her father in her to please me. 

Many improvements and luxuries were introduced, in the 
course of these five-and-forty years, in the general manner of 
living; but cock-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting were 
still the national amusements ; and a coach was so rarely seen, 
and was such an ugly and cumbersome affair when it was seen, 
that even the queen herself, on many high occasions, rode on 
horseback on a pillion behind the lord chancellor. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. 

" Our cousin of Scotland " was ugly, awkward, and shuf- 
fling, both in mind and perse n. His tongue was much too 
large for his mouth, his legs v/ere much too weak for his body, 
and his dull goggle-eyes stared and rolled like an idiot's. He 
was cunning, covetous, wasteful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, 
cowardly, a great swearer, and the most conceited man on 
earth. His figure — what is commonly called rickety from his 
birth — presented a most ridiculous appearance, dressed in 
thick padded clothes, as a safeguard against being stabbed (of 
which he lived in continual fear), of a grass-green color from 
head to foot, with a hunting-horn dangling at his side instead 



278 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

t)f a sword, and his hat and feather sticking over one eye, ot 
hanging on the back of his head, as he happened to toss it on. 
He used to loll on the necks of his favorite courtiers, and slob' 
ber their faces, and kiss and pinch their cheeks; and the 
greatest favorite he ever had used to sign himself, in his letters 
to his royal master, his Majesty's " dog and slave," and used 
to address his Majesty as " His Sowship." His Majesty was 
the worst rider ever seen, and thought himself the best. He 
was one of the most impertinent talkers (in the broadest 
Scotch) ever heard, and boasted of being unanswerable in iall 
manner of argument. He wrote some of the most wearisome 
treatises ever read, — among others, a book upon witchcraft, in 
which he was a devoted believer, — and thought himself a prod' 
igy of authorship. He thought and wrote and said, that a king 
had a right to make and unmake what laws he pleased, and 
ought to be accountable to nobody on earth. This is the 
plain, true character of the personage whom the greatest man 
about the court praised and flattered to that degree that I 
doubt if there be anything much more shameful in the annals 
of human nature. 

He came to the English throne with great ease. The 
miseries of a disputed succession had been felt so long and so 
dreadfully, that he was proclaimed within a few hours of 
Elizabeth's death, and was accepted by the nation, even with- 
out being asked to give any pledge that he would govern well, 
or that he would redress crying grievances. He took a month 
to come from Edinburgh to London ; and, by way of exercising 
his new power, hanged a pickpocket on the journey without 
any trial, and knighted everybody he could lay hold of. He 
made two hundred knights before he got to his palace in Lon- 
don, and seven hundred before he had been in it three months. 
He also shovelled sixty-two new peers into the House of Lords \ 
and there was a pretty large sprinkling of Scotchmen among 
them, you may believe. 

His Sowship's prime minister, Cecil (for I cannot do better 
than call his Majesty what his favorite called him), was the 
enemy of Sir Walter Raleigh, and also of Sir Walter's political 
friend. Lord Cobham ; and his Sowship's first trouble was a 
plot originated by these two, and entered into by some others, 
with the old object of seizing the king, and keeping him in 
imprisonment until he should change his ministers. There 
were Catholic priests in the plot, and there were Puritan noble- 
men too ; for although the Catholics and Puritans were strongly 
opposed to each other, they united at this time against his Sow 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRS! 279 

shipj because they knew that he had a design against botli^ 
after pretending to be friends to each, — this design being td 
have only one high and convenient form of the Protestant 
reUgion, which everybody should be bound to belong to, 
whether they liked it or not. This plot was mixed up with 
another, which may or may not have had some reference to 
placing on the throne, at some time, the Lady Arabella Stuart, 
whose misfortune it was to be the daughter of the youngei 
brother of his Sowship's father, but who was quite innocent of 
any part in the scheme. Sir Walter Raleigh was accused on 
the confession of Lord Cobham, — a miserable creature, who 
said one thing at one time, and another thing at another time, 
and could be relied upon in nothing. The trial of Sir Walter 
Raleigh lasted from eight in the morning until nearly midnight. 
He defended himself with such eloquence, genius, and spirit 
against all accusations, and against the insults of Coke, the 
Attorney-General, — who, according to the custom of the time, 
foully abused him, — that those who went there detesting the 
prisoner came away admiring him, and declaring that anything 
so wonderful and so captivating was never heard. He was 
found guilty, nevertheless, and sentenced to death. Execution 
was deferred, and he was taken to the Tower. The two Cath- 
olic priests, less fortunate, were executed with the usual atro- 
city ; and Lord Cobham and tv/o others were pardoned on the 
scaffold. His Sowship thought it wonderfully knowing in him 
to surprise the people by pardoning these three at the very 
block j but blundering and bungling, as usual, he had very 
nearly overreached himself ; for the messenger on horseback, 
who brought the pardon, came so late, that he was pushed to 
the outside of the crowd, and was obliged to shout and roar 
out what he came for. The miserable Cobham did not gain 
much by being spared that day. He lived, both as a prisoner 
and a beggar, utterly despised and miserably poor, for thir- 
teen years, and then died in an old out-house belonging to one 
of his former servants. 

This plot got rid of, and Sir Walter Raleigh safely shut up 
in the Tower, his Sowship held a great dispute with the 
Puritans on their presenting a petition to him, and had it all 
his own way, — not so very wonderful, as he would talk continu- 
ally, and would not hear anybody else, — and filled the bishops 
ivith admiration. It was comfortably settled that there was to 
be only one form of religion, and that all men were to think 
exactly alike. But although this was arranged two centuries 
and a half ago, and although the arrangement, was supported 



aSo A CNILB'S HISTORY OF ENGLANIk 

by much fining and imprisonment, I do not find ths^t it is quite 
successful even yet. 

His Sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion of him- 
self as a king, had a very low opinion of parliament as a powei 
that audaciously wanted to control him. When he called his 
first parliament after he had been king a year, he accordingly 
thought that he would take pretty high ground with them, and 
told them that he commanded them "as an absolute king." 
The Parliament thought those strong words, and saw the ne- 
cessity of upholding their authority. His Sowship had three 
children : Prince Henry, Prince Charles, and the Princess 
Elizabeth. It would have been well for one of these, and we 
shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a little wisdom con- 
cerning parliaments from his father's obstinacy. 

Now, the people still laboring under their old dread of the 
Catholic religion, this Parliament revived and strengthened the 
severe laws against it. And this so angered Robert Catesby, a 
restless Catholic gentleman of an old family, that he formed 
one of the most desperate and terrible designs ever conceived 
in the mind of man, — no less a scheme than the Gunpowder 
Plot. 

His object was, when the king, lords, and commons should 
be assembled at the next opening of parliament to blow them 
up, one and all, with a great mine of gunpowder. The first 
person to whom he confided this horrible idea was Thomas 
Winter, a Worcestershire gentleman who had served in the 
army abroad, and had been secretly employed in Catholic pro- 
jects. While Winter was yet undecided, and when he had gone 
over to the Netherlands, to learn from the Spanish ambassador 
there whether there was any hope of Catholics being relieved 
through the intercession of the King of Spain with his Sowship, 
he found at Ostend a tall, dark, daring man, whom he had 
known when they were both soldiers abroad, and whose name 
was Guido — or Guy — Fawkes. Resolved to join the plot, he 
proposed it to this man, knowing him to be the man for any 
desperate deed, and they two came back to England together. 
Here they admitted two other conspirators, — Thomas Percy, 
related to the Earl of Northumberland, and John Wright, his 
brother-in-law. All these met together in a solitary house in 
the open fields which were then near Clement's Inn, now a 
closely blocked up part of London ; and when they had all 
taken the oath of secrecy, Catesby told the rest what his plan 
was. They then went up stairs into a garret, and received the 
sacrament from Father Gerard, a Jesuit, who is said not ta 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. 281 

have known actually of the Gunpowder Plot, but who, I think, 
must have had his supicions that there was something desperate 
afoot. 

Percy was a gentleman pensioner ; and as he had occasional 
duties to perform about the court, then kept at Whitehall, there 
would be nothing suspicious in his living at Westminster. So, 
having looked well about him, and having found a house to 
let, the back of which joined the Parliament House, he hired it 
of a person named Ferris, for the purpose of undermining the 
wall. Having got possession of this house, the conspirators 
hired another on the Lambeth side of the Thames, which they 
used as a storehouse for wood, gunpowder, and other com- 
bustible matters. . These were to be removed at night (and 
afterwards were removed), bit by bit, to the house at West- 
minster ; and that there might be some trusty person to keep 
watch over the Lambeth stores, they admitted another con 
spirator, by name Robert Kay, a very poor Catholic gentleman. 

All these arrangements had been made some months ; and 
it was a dark wintry December night, when the conspirators, 
who had been in the mean time dispersed to avoid observation, 
met in the house at Westminster, and began to dig. They had 
laid in a good stock of eatables, to avoid going in and out, and 
they dug and dug with great ardor. But the wall being tremen- 
dously thick, and the work very severe, they took into their 
plot Christopher Wright, a younger brother of John Wright, 
that they might have a new pair of hands to help. And Christo- 
pher Wright fell to like a fresh man j and they dug and dug, by 
night and by day, and Fawkes stood sentmel all the time. And 
if any man's heart seemed to fail him at all, Fawkes said, 
" Gentlemen, we have abundance of powder and shot here j 
and there is no fear of our being taken alive, even if discovered." 
The same Fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel, was always 
prowling about, soon picked up the intelligence that the king 
had prorogued the Parliament again, from the 7th of February, 
the day first fixed upon, until the 3d of October. When the 
conspirators knew this, they agreed to separate until after the 
Christmas holidays, and to take no notice of each other in the 
mean while, and never to write letters to one another on any 
account. So the house at Westminster was shut up again ; and 
I suppose the neighbors thought that those strange-looking men 
who lived there so gloomily, and went out so seldom, were gone 
away to have a merry Christmas somewhere. 

It was the beginning of February, 1605, when Catesby met 
his fellow-conspirators again at this Westminster house. He 



282 ^ CHILD'S mSTORY OF ENGLAND. 

had now admitted three more, — ^John Grant, a Warwickshire 
gentleman of a melancholy temper, who lived in a doleful house 
near Stratford-upon-Avon, with a frowning wall all round it, and 
a deep moat ; Robert Winter, eldest brother of Thomas ; and 
Catesby's own servant, Thomas Bates, who, Catesby thought, 
had had some suspicion of what his master was about. These 
three had all suffered more or less for their religion in Eliza- 
beth's time. And now they all began to dig again ; and thej 
dug and dug, by night and by day. 

They found it dismal work alone there, under ground, with 
such a fearful secret on their minds, and so many murders before 
them. They were filled with wild fancies. Sometimes they 
thought they heard a great bell tolling, deep down in the earth 
under the Parliament House; sometimes they thought they 
heard low voices muttering about the Gunpowder Plot ; once, 
in the morning, they really did hear a great rumbling noise over 
their heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine. Every 
man stopped, and looked aghast at his neighbor, wondering 
what happened, when that bold prowler, Fawkes, who had been 
out to look, came in and told them that it was only a dealer in 
coals who had occupied a cellar under the Parliament House, 
removing his stock in trade to some other place. Upon this 
the conspirators, who with all their digging and digging, had 
not yet dug through the tremendously thick wall, changed their 
plan ; hired that cellar, which was directly under the House of 
Lords ; put six-and-thirty barrels of gunpowder in it, and cov- 
ered it over with fagots and coals. Then they all dispersed 
again till September, when the following new conspirators were 
admitted ; Sir Edward Baynham of Gloucestershire, Sir Everard 
Digby of Rutlandshire, Ambrose Rookwood of Suffolk, Francis 
Tresham of Northamptonshire. Most of these were rich, and 
were to assist the plot, some with money, and some with horses, 
on which the conspirators were to ride through the country, and 
rouse the Catholics, after the Parliament should be blown into 
air. 

Parliament being again prorogued from the 3d of October 
to the 5th of November, and the conspirators being uneasy lest 
their design should have been found out, Thomas Winter said 
he would go up into the House of Lords on the day of the pro- 
rogation, and see how matters looked. Nothing could be bet- 
ter. The unconscious commissioners were walking about and 
talking to one another, just over the six-and-thirty barrels of gun- 
powder. He came back and told the rest so, and they went on 
with their preparations. They hired a ship, and kept it ready 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. 283 

tn the Thames, in which Fawkes was to sail for Flanders after 
firing with a slow-match the train that was to explode the pow- 
der. A number of Catholic gentlemen not in the secret were 
invited, on pretence of a hunting-party, to meet Sir Everard 
Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day, that they might be ready 
to act together. And now all was ready. 

But now the great wickedness and danger, which had been 
all along at the bottom of this wicked plot, began to show it- 
self. As the 5th of November drew near, most of the conspira- 
tors, remembering that they had friends and relations who 
would be in the House of Lords that day, felt some natural re- 
lenting, and a wish to warn them to keep away. They were 
not much comforted by Catesby's declaring, that in such a cause, 
he would blow up his own son. Lord Mounteagle, Tresham's 
brother-in-law, was certain to be in the house ; and when 
Tresham found that he could not prevail upon the rest to^ de- 
vise any means of sparing their friends, he wrote a mysterious 
letter to this lord, and left it at his lodging in the dusk, urging 
him to keep away from the opening of Parliament, " since God 
and man had concurred to punish the wickedness of the times." 
It contained the words, *' That the Parliament should receive a 
terrible blow, and yet should not see who hurt them." And it 
added, " The danger is past, as soon as you have burnt the 
letter." 

The ministers and courtiers made out that his Sowship, by 
a direct miracle from heaven, found out what this letter meant. 
The truth is, that they were not long (as few men would be) in 
finding out for themselves ; and it was decided to let the con- 
spirators alone, until the very day before the opening of Par- 
liament. That the conspirators had their fears is certain ; for 
Tresham himself said before them all, that they were every one 
dead men ; and, although even he did not take flight, there is 
reason to suppose that he had warned other persons besides 
Lord Mounteagle. However, they were all firm ; and Fawkes, 
who was a man of iron, went down every day and night to keep 
watch in the cellar as usual. He was there about two in the 
"afternoon of the 4th, when the lord chamberlain and Lord 
Mounteagle threw open the door and looked in. " Who are 
you, friend ? " said they. " Why," said Fawkes, " I am Mr. 
Percy's servant, and am looking after his store of fuel here." 
*' Your master has laid in a pretty good store," they returned, 
and shut the door and went away. Fawkes, upon this,^ posted 
off to the other conspirators to tell them all was quiet, and 
went back and shut himself up. in the dark black cellar again, 



284 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

where he heard the bell go twelve o'clock, and usher in the 5th 
of November. About two hours afterwards, he slowly opei^ed 
the door, and came out to look about him, in his old prowling 
way. He was instantly seized and bound by a party of soldiers 
under Sir Thomas Knevett. He had a watch upon him, some 
touchwood, some tinder, some slow-matches ; and there was a 
dark lantern with a candle in it, lighted, behind the door. He 
had his boots and spurs on, — to ride to the ship, I suppose ; 
and it was well for the soldiers that they took him so suddenly. 
If they had left him but a moment's time to light a match, he 
certainly would have tossed it in among the powder, and blown 
up himself and them. 

They took him to the king's bedchamber first of all ; and 
there the king, causing him to be held very tight, and keeping 
a good way off, asked him how he could have the heart to in- 
tend to destroy so many innocent people. " Because," said 
Guy Fawkes, " desperate diseases need desperate remedies." 
To a little Scotch favorite, with a face like a terrier, who asked 
him, with no particular wisdom, why he had collected so much 
gunpowder, he replied, because he had meant to blow Scotch- 
men back to Scotland, and it would take a deal of powder to 
do that. Next day he was carried to the Tower, but would 
make no confession. Even after being horribly tortured, he 
confessed nothing that the government did not already know ; 
though he must have been in a fearful state, as his signature, 
still preserved, in contrast with his natural handwriting before 
he was put upon the dreadful rack, most frightfully shows. 
Bates, a very different man, soon said the Jesuits had had to 
do with the plot, and probably, under the torture, would as 
readily have said anything. Tresham, taken and put in the 
Tower too, made confessions and unmade them, and died of an 
illness that was heavy upon him. Rookwood, who had sta- 
tioned lelays of his own horses all the way to Dunchurch, did 
not mount to escape until the middle of the day, when the news 
of the plot was all over London. On the road, he came up 
with the two Wrights, Catesby, and Percy ; and they all gal- 
loped together into Northamptonshire ; thence to Dunchurch, 
where they found the proposed party assembled. Finding, 
however, that there had been a plot, and that it had been dis- 
covered, the party disappeared in the course of the night, and 
left them alone with*Sir Everard Digby. Away they all rode 
again, through Warwickshire and Worcestershire, to a house 
called Holbeach, on the borders of Staffordshire. They tried 
to raise the Catholics on their way, but were indignantly driven 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST, 285 

off by them. All this time they were hotly pursued by the 
Sheriff of Worcester, and a fast-increasing concourse of riders. 
At last, resolving to defend themselves at Holbeach, they shut 
themselves up in the house, and put some wet powder before 
the fire to dry. But it blew up, and Catesby was singed and 
blackened, and almost killed, and some of the others were 
sadly hurt. Still, knowing that they must die, they resolved to 
die there, and with only their swords in their hands, appeared 
at the windows to be shot at by the sheriff and his assistants, 
Catesby said to Thomas Winter, after Thomas had been hit in 
the right arm, which dropped powerless by his side, " Stand by 
me, Tom, and we will die together ! " which they did, being 
shot through the body by two bullets from one gun. John 
Wright and Christopher Wright and Percy were also shot. 
Rookwood and Digby were taken ; the former with a broken 
arm and a wound in his body too. 

It was the 15th of January, before the trial of Guy f^awkes, 
and such of the other conspirators as were left alive came on. 
They were all found guilty, all hanged, drawn and quartered, — ■ 
some in St. Paul's Churchyard, on the top of Ludgate Hill ; 
some before the Parliament House. A Jesuit priest, named 
Henry Garnet, to whom the dreadful design was said to have 
been communicated, was taken and tried ; and two of his ser- 
vants, as well as a poor priest who was taken with him, were 
tortured without mercy. He himself was not tortured, but was 
surrounded in the Tower by tamperers and traitors, and so was 
made unfairly to convict himself out of his own mouth. He 
said, upon his trial, that he had done all he could to prevent 
the deed, and that he could not make public what had been 
told him in confession, — though I am afraid he knew of the 
plot in other ways. He was found guilty and executed, after a 
manful defence, and the Catholic Church made a saint of him. 
Some rich and powerful persons, who had had nothing to do 
with the project, were fined and imprisoned for it by the Star 
Chamber; the Catholics in general, who had recoiled with 
horror from the idea of the infernal contrivance, were unjustly 
put under more severe laws than before \ and this was the end 
of the Gunpowder Plot. 

Second Part. 

His Sowship would pretty willingly, I think, have blown 
the House of Com.mons into the air himself ; fo" his dread 
and jealousy of it knew no bcunds all through his reign, 



«86 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

When he was hard-pressed for money, he was obliged to or- 
der it to meet, as he could get no money without it ; and 
when it asked him first to abolish some of the monopolies in 
necessaries of life, which were a great grievance to the people, 
and to redress other public wrongs, he flew into a rage and got 
rid of it again. At one time he wanted it to consent to the 
union of England with Scotland, and quarrelled about that. 
At another time he wanted it to put down a most infamous 
Church abuse, called the High Commission Court ; and he 
quarrelled with it about that. At another time it entreated 
him not to be quite so fond of his archbishops and bishops, 
who made speeches in his praise too awful to be related, but to 
have some little consideration for the poor Puritan clergy, who 
were persecuted for preaching in their own way, and not ac- 
cording to the archbishops and bishops ; and they quarrelled 
about that. In short, what with hating the House of Commons, 
and pretending not to hate it ; and what with now sending some 
of its members who opposed him to Newgate or to the Tower, 
and now telling the rest that they must not presume to make 
speeches about the public affairs which could not possibly con 
cern them ; and what with cajoling and bullying, and frighten- 
ing and being frightened, — the House of Commons was the 
plague of his Sowship's existence. It was pretty firm, however, 
in maintaining its rights, and insisting that the Parliament 
should make the laws, and not the king by his own single proc- 
lamation (which he tried hard to do) ; and his Sowship was so 
often distressed for money, in consequence, that he sold every 
sort of title and public office as if they were merchandise, and 
even invented a new dignity called a baronetcy, which anybody 
could buy for a thousand pounds. These disputes with his 
parliaments, and his hunting, and his drinking, and his laying 
in bed, — for he was a great sluggard, — occupied his Sov/ship 
pretty well. The rest of his time he chiefly passed in hugging 
and slobbering his favorites. The first of these was Sir Philip 
Herbert, who had no knowledge whatever, except of dogs and 
horses and hunting, but whom he soon made Earl of Mont- 
gomery. The next, and a much more famous one, was Robert 
Carr, or Ker (for it is not certain which is his right name), who 
came from the Border country, and whom he soon made Vis- 
count Rochester, and afterwards Earl of Somerset. The way 
in which his Sowship doted on this handsome young man is 
even more odious to think of than the way in which the great 
men of England condescended to bow down before him. The 
favorite's great friend was a certain Sir Thomas Overbury, who 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST, 287 

wrote his love-letters for him, and assisted him in the duties of 
his many high places, which his own ignorance prevented him 
from discharging. But this same Sir Thomas having just man- 
hood enough to dissuade the favorite from a wicked marriage 
with the beautiful Countess of Essex, who was to get a divorce 
from her husband for the purpose, the said countess, in her 
rage, got Sir Thomas put into the Tower, and there poisoned 
him. Then the favorite and this bad woman were publicly 
married by the king's pet bishop, with as much-to-do and re- 
joicing as if he had been the best man, and she the best woman, 
upon the face of the earth. 

But after a longer sunshine than might have been expected, 
— of seven years or so, that is to say, — another handsome 
young man started up, and eclipsed the Earl of Somerset. 
This was George Villiers, the youngest son of a Leicestershire 
gentleman ; who came to court with all the Paris fashions on 
him, and could dance as well as the best mountebank that evef 
was seen. He soon danced himself into the good graces of his 
Sowship, and danced the other favorite out of favor. Then it 
was all at once discovered that the Earl and Countess of 
Somerset had not deserved all these great promotions and 
mighty rejoicings ; and they were separately tried for the mur- 
der of Sir Thomas Overbury, and for other crimes. But the 
king was so afraid of his late favorite's publicly telling some 
of the disgraceful things he. knew of him, — which he darkly 
threatened to do, — that he was even examined with two men 
standing, one on either side of him, each with a cloak in his 
hand, ready to throw it over his head and stop his mouth, if he 
should break out with what he had in his power to tell. So 
a very lame affair was purposely made of the trial ; and his 
punishment was an allowance of four thousand pounds a year 
in retirement, while the countess was pardoned, and allowed to 
pass into retirement too. They hated one another by this time, 
and lived to revile and torment each other some years. 

While these events were in progress, and while his Sowship 
was making such an exhibition of himself, from day to day and 
from year to year, as is not often seen in any sty, three remark- 
able deaths took place in England. The first was that of the 
minister, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was past sixty, 
and had never been strong, being deformed from his birth. He 
said at last that he had no wish to live ; and no minister need 
have had, with his experience of the meanness and wickedness 
of those disgraceful times. The second was that of the Lady 
Arabella Stuart, who alarmed his Sowship mightily by privately 



288 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

marrying William Seymour, son of Lord Beauchamp, who was 
a descendant of King Henry the Seventh, and who, his Sow- 
ship thought, miglit consequently increase and strengthen any 
claim she might one day set up to the throne. She was 
separated from her husband (who was put in the Tower) and 
thrust into a boat to be confined at Durham. She escaped in 
a man's dress to get away in a French ship from Gravesend tc 
France, but unhappily missed her husband, who had escaped 
too, and was soon taken. She went raving mad in the miser 
able Tower, and died there after four years. The last, and the 
most important, of these three deaths, was that of Prince 
Henry, the heir to the throne, in the nineteenth year of his age. 
He was a promising young prince, and greatly liked, — a quiet 
well-conducted youth, of whom two very good things are known! 
first, that his father was jealous of him ; secondly, that he was 
the friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, languishing through all those 
years in the Tower, and often said that no man but his father 
would keep such a bird in such a cage. On the occasion of 
the preparations for the marriage of his sister, the Princess 
Elizabeth, with a foreign prince (and an unhappy marriage it 
turned out), he came from Richmond, where he had been very 
ill, to greet his new brother-in-law, at the palace at Whitehall. 
There he played a great game at tennis, in his shirt, though it 
was very cold weather, and was seized with an alarming illness, 
and died within a fortnight of a putrid fever. For this young 
prince Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, in his prison in the Tower, 
the beginning of a History of the World ; a wonderful instance 
how little his Sowship could do to confine a great man's mind, 
however long he might imprison his body. 

At this mention of Sir W^alter Raleigh, who had many faults, 
but who never showed so many merits as in trouble and adver- 
sity, may bring me at once to the end of his sad story. After 
an imprisonment in the Tower for twelve long years, he pro 
posed to resume those old sea voyages of his, and to go tc 
South America in search of gold. His Sowship, divided be 
tween a wish to be on good terms with the Spaniards, through 
whose territory Sir Walter must pass (he had long had an idea of 
marrying Prince Henry to a Spanish princess), and his avaricious 
eagerness to get hold of the gold, did not know what to do. 
But in the end he set Sir Walter free, taking securities for his 
return ; and Sir Walter fitted out an expedition at his own cost, 
and on the 28th of March, 1617, sailed away in command of 
one of its ships, which he ominously called the Destiny. The ex- 
pedition failed ; the common men, not finding the gold they 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST, 289 

had expected, mutinied ; a quarrel broke out between Sir 
Walter and the Spaniards, who hated him for old successes of 
his against them ; and he took and burnt a little town called 
St. Thomas. For this he was denounced to his Sowship by the 
Spanish ambassador as a pirate ; and returning almost broken- 
hearted, with all his hopes and fortunes shattered, his company 
of friends dispersed, and his brave son (who had been one of 
them) killed, he was taken, — through the treachery of Sir Lewis 
Stukely, his near relation, a scoundrel and a vice-admiral, — and 
was once again immured in his prison home of so many years. 
His Sowship being mightily disappointed in not getting any 
gold, Sir Walter Raleigh was tried as unfairly, and with as 
many lies and evasions, as the judges and law-officers and 
every other authority in church and state habitually prac- 
ticed under such a king. After a great deal of prevarication 
on all parts but his own, it was declared that he must die 
under his former sentence, now fifteen years old. So, on the 
28th of October, 16 18, he was shut up m the Gate House at 
Westminster to pass his last night on earth ; and there he took 
leave of his good and faithful lady, who was worthy to have 
lived in better days. At eight o'clock next morning, after a 
cheerful breakfast, and a pipe, and a cup of good wine, he was 
taken to Old Palace Yard, in Westminster, where the scaffold 
was set up, and where so many people of high degree were as- 
sembled to see him die, that it was a matter of some difficulty 
to get him through the crowd. He behaved most nobly ; but, 
if anything lay heavy on his mind, it was that Earl of Essex, 
whose head he had seen roll off ; and he solemnly said that he 
had had no hand in bringing him to the block, and that he had 
shed tears for him when he died. As the morning was very 
cold the sheriff said, Would he come down to a fire for a 
litde space, and warm himself ? But Sir Walter thanked 
him, and said, No ; he would rather it were done at once ; for 
he was ill of fever and ague, and in another quarter of an houi 
his shaking fit v/ould come upon him if he were still alive, and 
his enemies might then suppose that he trembled for fear. 
With that he kneeled, and made a very beautiful and Christian 
prayer. Before he laid his head upon the block he felt the 
edge of the axe, and said, with a smile upon his face, that it 
was a sharp medicine, but would cure the worst disease. 
When he was bent down, ready for death, he said to the ex- 
ecutioner, finding that he hesitated, " What dost thou fear.? 
Strike, man ! " So the axe came down, and struck his head 
off, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 



290 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

The new favorite got on fast. He was made a viscount, h« 
was made Duke of Buckingham, he was made a marquis, he was 
made master of the horse, he was made lord high admiral ; 
and the chief commander of the gallant English forces that 
had dispersed the Spanish Armada was displaced to make 
room for him. He had the whole kingdom at his disposal ; 
and his mother sold all the profits and honors of the state, as 
if she had kept a shop. He blazed all over with diamonds 
and other precious stones, from his hat-band and his ear-rings 
to his shoes. Yet he was an ignorant, presumptuous, swagger- 
ing compound of knave and fool, with nothing but his beauty 
and his dancing to recommend him. This is the gentleman 
who called himself his Majesty's dog and slave, and called his 
Majesty, Your Sowship. His Sowship called him Steenie ; it 
is supposed because that was a nickname for Stephen, and be- 
cause St. Stephen was generally represented in pictures as a 
handsome saint. 

His Sowship was driven sometimes to his wits'-end by his 
trimming between the general dislike of the Catholic religion 
at home, and his desire to wheedle and flatter it abroad, as his 
only means of getting a rich princess for his son's wife, a part 
of whose fortune he might cram into his greasy pockets. 
Prince Charles — or, as his Sowship called him. Baby Charles — 
being now Prince of Wales, the old project of a ma^rriage with 
the Spanish king's daughter had been revived for him ; and as 
she could not marry a Protestant without leave from the pope, 
his Sowship himself secretly and meanly wrote to his Infalli- 
bility, asking for it. The negotation for this Spanish marriage 
takes up a larger space in great books than you can imagine ; 
but the upshot of all is, that, when it had been held off by the 
Spanish court for a long time, Baby Charles and Steenie set off 
in disguise as Mr. Thomas Smith and Mr. John Smith, to see 
the Spanish princess ; that Baby Charles pretended to be des- 
perately in love with her, and jumped off walls to look at her, 
and made a considerable fool of himself in a good many ways > 
that she was called Princess of Wales, and that the whole 
Spanish court believed Baby Charles to be all but dying foi 
her sake, as he expressly told them he was ; that Baby 
Charles and Steenie came back to England, and were received 
with as much rapture as if they had been a blessing to it ; that 
Baby Charles had actually fallen in love with Henrietta Maria, 
the French king's sister, whom he had seen in Paris ; that he 
thought it a wonderfully fine and princely thing to have de- 
ceived the Spaniards all through ; and that he openly said, with 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE FIRST. 29 1 

a chuckle, as soon as he was safe and sound at home agaiiij 
that the Spaniards were great fools to have believed him. 

Like most dishonest men, the prince and the favorite com- 
plained that the people whom they had deluded were dis- 
honest. They made such misrepresentations of the treachery 
of the Spaniards, in this business of the Spanish match, that 
the English nation became eager for a war with them. Al- 
though the gravest Spaniards laughed at the idea of his Sow- 
ship in a warlike attitude, the Parliament granted money for 
the beginning of hostilities, and the treaties with Spain were 
publicly declared to be at an end. The Spanish ambassador in 
London, — probably with the help of the fallen favorite, the Earl 
of Somerset, — being unable to obtain speech with his Sowship, 
slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was a prisoner 
in his own house, and was entirely governed by Buckingham and 
his creatures. The first effect of this letter was, that his Sowship 
began to cry and whine, and took Baby Charles away from 
Steenie, and went down to Windsor, gabbling all sorts of non- 
sense. The end of it was that his Sowship hugged his dog 
and slave, and said he was quite satisfied. 

He had given the prince and the favorite almost unlimited 
power to settle anything with the pope as to the Spanish mar- 
riage ; and he now, with a view to the French one, signed a 
treaty that all Roman Catholics in England should exercise 
their religion freely, and should never be required to take any 
oath contrary thereto. In return for this, and for other con- 
cessions much less to be defended, Henrietta Maria was to 
become the Prince's wife, and was to bring him a fortune of 
eight hundred thousand crowns. 

His Sowship's eyes were getting red with eagerly looking 
for the money, when the end of a gluttonous life came upon 
him ; and, after a fortnight's illness, on Sunday, the 27 th of 
March, 1625, he died. He had reigned twenty-two years, and 
was fifty-nine years old. I know of nothing more abominable 
in history than the adulation that was lavished on this king, 
and the vice and corruption that such a bare-faced habit 
of lying produced in his court. It is much to be doubted 
whether one man of honor, and not utterly self-disgraced kept 
his place near James the First. Lord Bacon, that able and 
wise philosopher, as the first judge in the kingdom in this reign, 
became a public spectacle of dishonesty and corruption ; and 
in his base flattery of his Sowship, and in his crawling servility 
to his dog and slave, disgraced himself even more. But a crea- 
ture like his Sowship set upon a throne is like a plague, and 
everybody receives infection from him. 



292 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 

Baby Charles became King Charles the First in the 
twenty-fifth year of his age. Unlike his father, he was usually 
amiable in his private character, and grave and dignified in his 
bearing; but, like his father, he had monstrously exaggerated 
notions of the rights of a king, and was evasive, and not to be 
trusted If his word could have been relied upon, his history 
might have had a different end. 

His first care was to send over that insolent upstart, 
Buckingham, to bring Henrietta Maria from Paris to be his 
queen ; upon which occasion, Buckingham, with his usual 
audacity, made love to the young Queen of Austria, and was 
very indignant indeed with Cardinal Richelieu, the French 
minister, for thwarting his intentions. The English people 
were very well disposed to like their new queen, and to receive 
her with great favor when she came among them as a stranger. 
But she held the Protestant religion in great dislike, and 
brought over a crowd of unpleasant priests, who made her do 
some very ridiculous things, and forced themselves upon the 
public notice in many disagreeable ways. Hence the people soon 
came to dislike her, and she soon came to dislike them ; and 
she did so much all through this reign in setting the king, who 
was dotingly fond of her, against his subjects, that it would have 
been better for him if she had never been born. 

Now you are to understand that King Charles the First, of 
his own determination to be a high and mighty king, not to be 
called to account by anybody, and urged on by his queen be- 
sides, deliberately set himself to put his parliament down and 
to put himself up. You are also to understand, that, even in 
pursuit of this wrong idea (enough in itself to have ruined any 
king), he never took a straight course, but always a crooked 
one. 

He was bent upon war with Spain, though neither the House 
of Commons nor the people were quite clear as to the justice of 
that war, now that they began to think a little more about the 
story of the Spanish match. But the king rushed into it hotly, 
raised money by illegal means to meet its expenses, and en- 
countered a miserable failure at Cadiz, in the very first year 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST, 



293 



of his reign. An expedition to Cadiz had been made in the 
hope of plunder ; but, as it was not successful, it was necessary 
to get a grant of money from the Parliament ; and when they 
met in no very complying humor, the king told them, " to make 
haste to let him have it, or it would be the worse for themselves." 
Not put in a more complying humor by this, they impeached the 
king's favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, as the cause — which 
he undoubtedly was — of many great public grievances and 
wrongs. The king, to save him, dissolved the Parliament with- 
out getting the money he wanted ; and when the lords implored 
him to consider and grant a little delay, he replied, '' No, not 
one minute." He then began to raise money for himself by the 
following means among others. 

He levied certain duties, called tonnage and poundage, 
which had not been granted l3y the Parliament, and could law^- 
fully be levied by no other power ; he called upon the seaport 
towns to furnish, and to pay all the cost for three months of a 
fleet of armed ships ; and he required the people to unite in 
lending him large sums of money, the repayment of which was 
very doubtful. If the poor people refused, they were pressed as 
soldiers or sailors; if the gentry refused, they were sent to 
prison. Five gentlemen, named Sir Thomas Darnel, John 
Corbet, Walter Earl, John Heveningham, and Everard Hamp- 
den, for refusing, were taken up by a warrant of the king's privy 
council, and were sent to prison without any cause but the king's 
pleasure being stated for their imprisonment. Then the ques- 
tion came to be solemnly tried, whether this was not a violation 
of Magna Charta, and an encroachment by the king on the 
highest rights of the English people. His lawyers contended, 
No ; because to encroach upon the rights of the English people 
would be to do wrong, and the king could do no wrong. The 
accommodating judges decided in favor of this wicked nonsense ; 
and here was a fatal division between the king and the people. 

For all this it became necessary to call another parliament. 
The people, sensible of the dangers in which their liberties were, 
chose for it those who were best known for their determined 
opposition to the king ; but still the king, quite blinded by his 
determination to carry everything before him, addressed them, 
when they met, in a contemptuous manner, and just told them 
in so many words that he had only called them together because 
he wanted money. The Parliament, strong enough and resolute 
enough to know that they would lower his tone, cared little for 
what he said, and laid before him one of the great documents oi 
history, which is called the Petition of Right, requiring that the 



394 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

free men of England should no longer be called upon to lend 
the king money, and should no longer be pressed or imprisonec^ 
for refusing to do so ; further, that the free men of England 
should no longer be seized by the king's special mandate or 
warrant, it being contrary to their rights and liberties, and the 
laws of their country. At first, the king returned an answer to 
this petition, in which he tried to shirk it altogether ; but the 
House of Commons then showing their determination to go on 
with the impeachment of Buckingham, the king, in alarm, 
returned an answer, giving his consent to all that was required 
of him. He not only afterwards departed from his word and 
honor on these points, over and over again, but at this very 
time, he did the mean and dissembling act of publishing his first 
answer and not his second, merely that the people might sup 
pose that the Parliament had not got the better of him. 

That pestilent Buckingham, to gratify his own wounded 
vanity, had, by this time, involved the country in war with 
France, as well as with Spain. For such miserable causes and 
such miserable creatures are wars sometimes made. But he 
was destined to do little more mischief in this world. One 
morning, as he was going out of his house to hi-s carriage, he 
turned to speak to a certain Colonel Fryer who was with him ; 
and he was violently stabbed with a knife, which the murderer 
left sticking in his heart. This happened in his hall. He had 
angry words up stairs, just before, with some French gentlemen, 
who were immediately suspected by his servants, and had a 
close escape from being set upon and killed. In the midst of 
the noise, the real murderer, who had gone to the kitchen and 
might easily have got away, drew his sword, and cried out, " I 
am the man ! " His name was John Felton, a Protestant, and 
a retired officer in the army. He said he had no personal ill- 
will to the duke, but had killed him as a curse to the country. 
He had aimed his blow well ; for Buckingham had only had 
time to cry out, " Villain ! " and then he drew out the knife, fell 
against a table, and died. 

The council made a mighty business of examining John 
Felton about this murder, though it was a plain case enough, one 
would think. He had come seventy miles to do it, he told them, 
and he did it for the reason he had declared ; if they put him 
upon the rack, as that noble Marquis of Dorset, whom he saw 
before him, had the goodness to threaten, he gave that mar- 
quis warning that he would acuse him as his accomplice. The 
king was unpleasantly anxious to have him racked, nevertheless ; 
but as the judges now found out that torture was contrary tQ 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 295 

the law of England, — it is a pity they did not make the discov- 
ery a little sooner, — John Felton was simply executed for the 
murder he had done. A murder it undoubtedly was, and not 
in the least to be defended, though he had freed England from 
one of the most profligate, contemptible, and base court favorites 
to whom it has ever yielded. 

A very different man now arose. This was Sir Thomas 
Wentworth, a Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in parlia- 
ment for a long time, and who had favored arbitrary and 
haughty principles, but who had gone over to the people's side 
on receiving offence from Buckingham. The king, much want- 
ing such a man, — for besides being naturally favorable to th ;) 
king's cause, he had great abilities, — made him first a baron, 
and then a viscount, and gave him high employment, and won 
him most completely. 

A parliament, however, was still in existence, and was 710I 
to be won. On the 20th of January, 1629, Sir John Eliot, a 
great man who had been active in the Petition of Right, 
brought forward other strong resolutions against the king's 
chief instruments, and called upon the speaker to put them to 
the vote. To this the speaker answered, " He was commanded 
otherwise by the king," and got up to leave the chair, which, 
according to the rules of the House of Commons, would have 
obliged it to adjourn without doing anything more, when two 
members, named Mr. Hollis and Mr. Valentine, held him down. 
A scene of great confusion arose among the members ; and 
while many swords were drawn and flashing about, the king, 
who was kept informed of all that was going on, told the cap- 
tain of his guard to go down to the House and force the doors. 
The resolutions were by that time, however, voted, and the 
House adjourned. Sir John Eliot, and those two members who 
had held the speaker down, were quickly summoned before the 
council. As they claimed it to be their privilege not to an- 
swer out of parliament for anything they had said in it, they 
were committed to the Tower. The king then went down and 
dissolved the Parliament, in a speech wherein he made mention 
of these gentlemen as "Vipers," which did not do him much 
good that ever I heard of. 

As they refused to gain their liberty by saying they were 
sorry for what they had done, the king, always remarkably un- 
forgiving, never overlooked their offence. When they de- 
manded to be brought up before the court of king's bench, he 
even resorted to the meanness of having them moved about 
frgm prison to prison^ so that the writs issued for that purpose 



2go A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

should not legally find them. At last they came before the 
court, and were sentenced to heavy fines, and to be imprisoned 
during the king's pleasure. When Sir John Eliot's health had 
quite given away, and he so longed for change of air and scene 
as to petition for his release, the king sent back the answer 
(worthy of his Sowship himself) that the petition was not humble 
enough. When he sent another petition by his young son, in 
which he pathetically offered to go back to prison when his 
health was restored, if he might be released for its recovery, 
the king still disregarded it. When he died in the Tower, and 
his children petitioned to be allowed to take his body down to 
Cornwall, there to lay it among the ashes of his forefathers, 
the king returned for answer, " Let Sir John Eliot's body be 
buried in the church of that parish where he died." All this 
was like a very little king indeed, I think. 

And now for twelve long years, steadily pursuing his de- 
sign of setting himself up and putting the people down, the 
king called no parliament, but ruled without one. If twelve 
thousand volumes were written in his praise (as a good many 
have been), it would still remain a fact, impossible to be de- 
nied, that for twelve years King Charles the First reigned in 
England unlawfully and despotically, seized upon his subjects' 
goods and money at his pleasure, and punished, according to 
his unbridled will, all who ventured to oppose him. It is a 
fashion with some people to think that this king's career was 
cut short j but I must say myself that I think he ran a pretty 
long one. 

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the king's 
right-hand man in the religious part of the putting down of the 
people's liberties. Laud, who was a sincere man, of large 
learning but small sense, — for the two things sometimes go to- 
gether in very different quantities, — though a Protestant, held 
opinions so near those of the Catholics that the pope wanted 
to make a cardinal of him, if he would have accepted that fa- 
vor. He looked upon vows, robes, lighted candles, images, 
&c., as amazingly important in religious ceremonies ; and he 
brought in an immensity of bowing and candle-snuffing. He 
also regarded archbishops and bishops as a sort of miraculous 
persons, and was inveterate in the last degree against any who 
thought otherwise. Accordingly, he offered up thanks to 
Heaven, and was in a state of much pious pleasure, when a 
Scotch clergyman, named Leighton, was pilloried, whipped, 
branded in the cheek, and had one of his ears cut off, and 
pne of his nostrils slitj for calling bishops trumpery and the 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 



297 



inventions of men. He originated on a Sunday morning the 
prosecution of William Pryne, a barrister who was of similar 
opinions, and who was fined a thousand pounds, who was pil' 
loried, who had his ears cut off on two occasions, — one ear at 
a time, — and who was imprisoned for life. He highly approved 
of the punishment of Dr. Bastwick, a physician, who was also 
fined a thousand pounds, and who afterwards had his ears 
cut off, and was imprisoned for life. These were gentle meth- 
ods of persuasion, some will tell you ; I think they were rather 
calculated to be alarming to the people. 

In the money part of the putting down of the people's lib- 
erties, the king was equally gentle, as some will tell you ; as I 
think, equally alarming. He levied those duties of tonnage 
and poundage, and increased them as he thought fit. He 
granted monopolies to companies of merchants on their paying 
him for them, notwithstanding the great complaints that had, for 
years and years, been made on the subject of monopolies. He 
fined the people for disobeying proclamations issued by his 
Sowship in direct violation of law. He revived the detested 
forest-laws, and took private property to himself as his forest 
right. Above all, he determined to have what was called ship- 
money ; that is to say, money for the support of the fleet, not 
only from the seaports, but from all the counties of England, 
having found out that in some ancient time or other, all the 
counties paid it. The grievance of this ship-money being 
somewhat too strong, John Chambers, a citizen of London, re- 
fused to pay his part of it. For this, the lord mayor ordered 
John Chambers to prison, and for that, John Chambers brought 
a suit against the lord mayor. Lord Say also behaved like a 
real nobleman, and declared he would not pay. But the stur- 
diest and best opponent of the ship-money was John Hamp- 
den, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, who had sat among the 
"vipers" in the House of Commons, when there was such a 
thing, and who had been the bosom friend of Sir John Eliot. 
This case was tried before the twelve judges in the Court of Ex- 
chequer, and again the king's lawyers said it was impossible 
that ship-money could be wrong, because the king could do no 
wrong, however hard he tried, and he really did try very hard 
during these twelve years. Seven of the judges said that was 
quite true, and Mr. Hampden was bound to pay ; five of the 
judges said that was quite false, and Mr. Hampden was not 
bound to pay. So the king triumphed (as he thought), by 
making Hampden the most popular man in England, where 
matters were getting to that height now that many honest Eng' 



2g$ A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

lishmen could not endure their country, and sailed away across 
the seas to found a colony in Massachusetts Bay in America. 
It is said that Hampden himself, and his relation, Oliver Crom- 
well, were going with a company of such voyagers, and were 
actually on board ship, when they were stopped by a proclama- 
tion prohibiting sea-captains to carry out such passengers with- 
out the royal licr.nse. But, O, it would have been well for the 
king if he had let them go ! 

This was the state of England. If Laud had been a mad- 
man just broke loose, he could not have done more mischief 
than he did in Scotland. In his endeavors (in which he was 
seconded by the king, then in person in that part of his domin- 
ions) to force his own ideas of bishops, and his own religious 
forms and ceremonies, upon the Scotch, he roused that nation 
to a perfect frenzy. They formed a solemn league, which they 
called The Covenant, for the preservation of their own religious 
forms ; they rose in arms throughout the whole country ; they 
summoned all their men to prayers and sermons twice a day by 
beat of drum ; they sang psalms, in which they compared their 
enemies to all the evil spirits that ever were heard of ; and they 
solemnly vowed to smite them with the sword. At first the 
king tried force, then treaty, then a Scottish parliament which 
did not answer at all. Then he tried the Earl of Stafford, for- 
merly Sir Thomas Wentworth ; who, as Lord Wentworth, had 
been governing Ireland. He, too, had carried it with a very 
high hand there, though to the benefit and prosperity of that 
country. 

Strafford and Laud were for conquering the Scottish people 
by force of arms. Other lords who were taken into council 
recommended that a parliament should at last be called ; to 
v/hich the king unwillingly consented. So, on the 13th of April, 
1640, that then strange sight, a parliament, was seen at West- 
minster. It is called the Short Parliament ; for it lasted a very 
little while. While the members were all looking at one another, 
doubtful who would dare to speak, Mr. Pym arose and set forth 
all that the king had done unlawfully during the past twelve 
years, and what was the position to which England was reduced. 
This great example set, other members took courage, and 
spoke the truth freely, though with great patience and modera- 
tion. The king, a little frightened, sent to say, that, if they v.-ould 
grant him a certain sum on certain terms, no more ship-money 
should be raised. They debated the matter for two days, and 
then, as they would not give him all he asked without promise 
or inquiry, he dissolved them. 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 29$ 

But they knew very well that he must have a parliament 
now ; and he began to make that discovery too, though rathei 
late in the day. Wherefore, on the 24th of September, being 
then at York, with an army collected against the Scottish people, 
but his own men sullen and discontented like the rest of the 
nation, the king told the great council of the lords, whom he had 
called to meet him there, that he would summon another par- 
liament to assemble on the 3d of November. The soldiers ol 
the Covenant had now forced their way into England, and had 
taken possession of the northern counties, where the coals are 
got. As it would never do to be without coals, and as the king's 
troops could make no head against the Covenantors, so full of 
gloomy zeal, a truce was made, and a treaty with Scotland was 
taken into consideration. Meanwhile the northern counties paid 
the Covenantors to leave the coals alone, and keep quiet. 

We have now disposed of the Short Parliament. We havq 
next to see what memorable things were done by the long one. 

Second Part. 

The Long Parliament assembled on the 3d of November, 
1641. That day week the Earl of Strafford arrived from York^ 
very sensible that the spirited and determined men who formed 
that parliament were no friends towards him, who had not only 
deserted the cause of the people, but who had on all occasions 
opposed himself to their liberties. The king told him, for his 
comfort, that the Parliament " should not hurt one hair of his 
head." But, on the very next day, Mr. Pym, in the house of 
Commons, and with great solemnity, impeached the Earl of 
Strafford as a traitor. He was immediately taken into custody, 
and fell from his proud height. 

It was the 2 2d of March before he was brought to trial at 
Westminster Hall ; where, although he was very ill and suffered 
great pain, he defended himself with such ability and majesty, 
that it was doubtful whether he would not get the best of it. 
But on the thirteenth day of the trial, Pym produced in the 
House of Commons a copy of some notes of a council, found 
by young Sir Harry Vane in a red velvet cabinet belonging to 
his father (Secretary Vane, who sat at the council-table with 
the Earl), in which Strafford had distinctly told the king thai 
he was free from all rules and obligations of government, and 
might do with his people whatever he liked ; and in which he 
added, " You have an army in Ireland that you may employ to 
reduce this kingdom to obedience." It was not clear whether 



200 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

by the words " this kingdom," he had really meant England ol 
Scotland ; but the Parliament contended that he meant England, 
and this was treason. At the same sitting of the House of 
Commons, it was resolved to bring in a bill of attainder de- 
claring the treason to have been committed, in preference to 
proceeding with the trial by impeachment, which would have 
required the treason to be proved. 

So a bill was brought in at once, was carried through the 
House of Commons by a large majority, and was sent up to the 
House of Lords. While it was still uncertain whether the 
House of Lords would pass it and the king consent to it, Pym 
disclosed to the House of Commons that the king and queen 
had both been plotting with the officers of the army to bring up 
the soldiers and control the Parliament, and also to introduce 
two hundred soldiers into the Tower of London to effect the 
earl's escape. The plotting with the army was revealed by one 
George Goring, the son of a lord of that name, — a bad 
fellow, who was one of the original plotters, and turned traitor. 
The king had actually given his warrant for the admission of 
the two hundred men into the Tower, and they would have got 
in too, but for the refusal of the governor — a sturdy Scotchman 
of the name of Balfour — to admit them. These matters being 
made public, great numbers of people began to riot outside the 
houses of parliament, and to cry out for the execution of the 
Earl of Strafford, as one of the king's chief instruments against 
them. The bill passed the House of Lords while the people 
were in this state of agitation, and was laid before the king for 
his assent, together with another bill declaring that the Parlia- 
ment then assembled should not be dissolved or adjourned 
without their own consent. The king — not unwilUng to save a 
faithful servant, though he had no great attachment for him— 
was in some doubt what to do ; but he gave his consent to both 
bills, although he in his heart believed that the bill against the 
Earl of Strafford was unlawful and unjust. The earl had written 
to him, telling him that he was willing to die for his sake. But 
he had not expected that his royal master would take him at 
his word quite so readily ; for when he heard his doom, he laid 
his hand upon his heart, and said, "Put not your trust in 
princes ? " 

The king, who never could be straightforward and plain 
through one single day, or through one single sheet of paper,, 
wrote a letter to the Lords, and sent it by the young Prince of 
Wales, entreating them to prevail with the Commons that 
" that unfortunate man should fulfil the natural course of his life 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE F/RST. ^qj 

in a close imprisonment." In a postscript to the very same 
letter, he added, " If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him 
till Saturday." If there had been any doubt of his fate, this 
weakness and meanness would have settled it. The very next 
(iay, which was the 12th of May, he was brought out to be be- 
headed on Tower Hill. 

Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of having people's 
ears cropped off and their noses slit, was now confined in the 
Tower too ; and when the earl went by his window to his death, 
he M^as there, at his request, to give him his blessing. They 
had been great friends in the king's cause ; and the earl had 
written to him in the days of their power, that he thought it 
would be an admirable thing to have Mr. Hampden publicly 
whipped for refusing to pay the ship-money. However, these 
high and mighty doings were over now, and the earl went his 
way to death with dignity and heroism. The governor wished 
him to get into a coach at the Tower-gate, for fear the people 
should tear him to pieces ; but he said it was all one to him 
whether he died by the axe or by the people's hands. So he 
walked, with a firm tread and a stately look, and sometimes 
pulled off his hat to them as he passed along. They were pro- 
foundly quiet. He made a speech on the scaffold from some 
notes he had prepared (the paper was found lying there after 
his head was struck off), and one blow of the axe killed him, 
in the forty-ninth year of his age. 

This bold and daring act the Parliament accompanied by 
other famous measures, all originating (as even this did) in the 
king's having so grossly and so long abused his power. The 
name of Delinquents was applied to all sheriffs and other officers 
who had been concerned in raising the ship-money, or any other 
money, from the people, in an unlawful manner ; the Hampden 
judgment was reversed ; the judges who had decided against 
Hampden were called upon to give large securities that they 
would take such consequences as Parliament might impose upon 
them ; and one was arrested as he sat in high court, and carried 
off to prison. Laud was impeached ; the unfortunate victims 
whose ears had been cropped and whose noses had been slit 
were brought out of prison in triumph ; and a bill was passed 
declaring that a parliament should be called every third year, 
and that, if the king and the king's officers did not call it, the 
people should assemble of themselves and summon it, as of their 
own right and power. Great illuminations and rejoicings took 
place over all these things, and the country was wildly excited 
That the Parliament took advantage of this excitement, and 



35:^ A cmLb'S MrstORY Ot^ EN-GLAND. 

Stirred them up by every means, there is no doubt ; but )■ )u 
are always to remember those twelve long years, during which 
the king had tried so hard whether he really could do any 
wrong or not. 

All this time there was a great religious outcry against the 
right of the bishops to sit in Parliament \ to which the Scottish 
people particularly objected. The English were divided on this 
subject ; and partly on this account, and partly because they 
had foolish expectations that the Parliament would be able to 
take off nearly all the taxes, numbers of them sometimes wa- 
vered, and inclined towards the king. 

I believe myself, that if at this, or almost any other period 
of his life, the king could have been trusted by any man not 
out of his senses, he might have saved himself and kept his 
throne. But, on the English army being disbanded, he plotted 
with the officers again, as he had done before, and established 
the fact beyond all doubt by putting his signature of approval 
to a petition against the Parliamentary leaders, which was drawn 
up by certain officers. When the Scottish army was disbanded, 
he went to Edinburgh in four days, — which was going very fast 
at that time, — to plot again, and so darkly too, that it is difficult 
to decide what his whole object was. Some suppose that he 
wanted to gain over the Scottish Parliament, as he did in fact 
gain over, by presents and favors, many Scottish lords and men 
of power. Some think that he went to get proofs against the 
Parliamentary leaders in England of their having treasonably 
invited the Scottish people to come and help them. With what- 
ever object he went to Scotland, he did little good by going. 
At the instigation of the Earl of Montrose, a desperate man who 
was then in prison for plotting, he tried to kidnap three Scottish 
lords who escaped. A committee of the Parliament at home, 
who had followed to watch him, writing an account of this In- 
cident, as it was called, to the Parliament, the Parliament made 
a fresh stir about it ; were, or feigned to be, much alarmed for 
themselves ; and wrote to the Earl of Essex, the commander-in- 
chief, for a guard to protect them. 

It is not absolutely proved that the king plotted in Ireland 
besides ; but it is very probable that he did, and that the queen 
did, and that he had some wild hope of gaining the Irish people 
over to his side by favoring a rise among them. Whether or no, 
they did rise in a most brutal and savage rebellion ; in which, 
encouraged by their priests, they committed such atrocities upon 
numbers of the English, of both sexes and of all ages, as no- 
body could believe, but for their being related on oath by eye 



kNGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 303 

witnesses. Whether one hundred thousand or two hundred 
thousand Protestants were murdered in this outbreak is uncer' 
tain ; but that it was as ruthless and barbarous an outbreak as 
ever was known among any savage people is certain. 

The king came home from Scotland, determined to make a 
great struggle for his lost power. He believed, that, through 
his presents and favors, Scotland would take no part against 
him ; and the Lord Mayor of London received him with such a 
magnificent dinner that he thought he must have become 
popular again in England. It would take a good many lord 
mayors, however, to make a people ; and the king soon found 
himself mistaken. 

Not so soon, though, but that there was a great opposition 
in the Parliament to a celebrated paper put forth by Pym and 
Hampden and the rest, called " The Remonstrance ; " which 
set forth all the illegal acts that the king had ever done, but 
politely laid the blame of them on his bad advisers. Even when 
it was passed, and presented to him, the king still thought him- 
self strong enough to discharge Balfour from his command in the 
Tower, and to put in his place a man of bad character, to whom 
the Commons instantly objected, and whom he was obliged to 
abandon. At this time, the old outcry about the bishops be- 
came louder than ever ; and the old Archbishop of York was so 
near being murdered as he went down to the House of Lords, 
— being laid hold of by the mob and violently knocked about, 
in return for very foolishly scolding a shrill boy who was yelp- 
ing out " No bishops ! "-^that he sent for all the bishops who 
were in town, and proposed to them to sign a declaration, that, 
as they could no longer without danger to their lives attend their 
duty in Parliament, they protested against *the lawfulness of 
everything done in their absence. This they asked the king to 
send to the House of Lords, which he did. Then the House of 
Commons impeached the whole party of bishops, and sent them 
off to the Tower. 

Taking no warning from this, but encouraged by there being 
a moderate party in the Parliament who objected to these strong 
measures, the king, on the 3d of January, 1642, took the rashest 
step that ever was taken by mortal man. 

Of his own accord and without advice, he sent the attorney- 
general to the House of Lords, to accuse of treason certain 
members of Parliament, who as popular leaders were the most 
obnoxious to him : Lord Kimbolton, Sir Arthur Haselrig, Den- 
zil Hollis, John Pym (they used to call him King Pym, he pos- 
sessed such power and looked so big), John Hampden, and 



3<^4 



A CmLD'S mSTORV OF ENGLAh^D 



William Strode. The houses of those members he caused td 
be entered, and their papers to be sealed up. At the same 
t'me, he sent a messenger to the House of Commons demand- 
mg to have the five gentlemen who were members of that House 
immediately produced. To this the House replied that they 
should appear as soon as there was any legal charge against 
them, and immediately adjourned. 

Next day, the House of Commons sent into the city to let 
ihe lord mayor know that their privileges are invaded ^y the 
king, and that there is no safety for anybody or arything. 
Then, when the five members are gone out of the v,ay down 
comes the king himself, with all his guard, and from ^'.v^o to three 
hundred gentlemen and soldiers, of whom the greater part 
were armed. These he leaves in the hall; p''.u then, with his 
nephew at his side, goes into the Houec, cakes off his hat, and 
walks up to the speaker's chair. The speaker leaves it, the 
king stands in front of it, looks about him steadily for a little 
while, and says he has come for those five members. No one 
speaks, and then he calls John Pym by name. No one speaks, 
and then he calls Denzil Hollis by name. No one speaks, and 
then he asks the Speaker of the House where those five mem- 
bers are ? The speaker, answering on his knee, nobly replies 
that he is the servant of that House, and that he has neither 
eyes to see, nor tongue to speak anything but what the House 
commands him. Upon this, the king, beaten from that time 
evermore, replies that he will seek them himself, for they have 
committed treason ; and goes out, with his hat in his hand, 
amid some audible murmurs from the members. 

No words can describe the hurry that arose out of doors 
when all this was. known. The five members had gone for 
safety to a house in Coleman Street, in the city, where they 
were guarded all night ; and indeed the whole city watched in 
arms like an army. At ten o'clock in the morning, the king, 
already frightened at what he had done, came to the Guildhallj 
with only half a dozen lords, and made a speech to the people^ 
hoping they would not shelter those whom he accused of treason 
Next day, he issued a proclamation for the apprehension of the 
five members \ but the Parliament minded it so little, that they 
made great arrangements for having them brought down to 
Westminster in great state, five days afterwards^ The king was 
so alarmed now at his own imprudence, if not for his own safety, 
that he left his palace at Whitehall, and went away with his 
queen and children to Hampton Court. 

It was the nth of May, when ^he five members were carried! 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST, 305 

in state and triumph to Westminster. They were taken by 
water. The river could not be seen for the boats on it ; and 
the five members were hemmed in by barges full of men and 
great guns, ready to protect them at any cost. Along the 
Strand a large body of the train-bands of London, under their 
commander, Skippon, marched to be ready to assist the little 
fleet. Beyond them, came a crowd who choked the streets, 
roaring incessantly about the bishops and the papists, and cry- 
ing out contemptuously as they passed Whitehall, " What has 
become of the king ? " With this great noise outside the House 
of Commons, and with great silence within, Mr. Pym rose, and 
informed the House of the great kindness with which they had 
been received in the city. Upon that the House called the 
sheriffs in and thanked them, and requested the train-bands, 
ander their commander Skippon, to guard the House of Com- 
mons every day. Then came four thousand men on horseback 
out of Buckinghamshire, oifering their services as a guard too, 
and bearing a petition to the king, complaining of the injury 
that had been done to Mr. Hampden, who was their county- 
man, and much beloved and honored. 

When the king set off for Hampton Court, the gentlemen 
and soldiers who had been with him followed him out of town 
as far as Kingston-upon-Thames ; next day. Lord Digby came 
to them from the king at Hampton Court, in his coach and six, 
to inform them that the king accepted their protection. This, 
the Parliament said, was making war against the kingdom ; and 
Lord Digby fled abroad. The Parliament then immediately 
applied themselves to getting hold of the military power of the 
country, well knowing that the king was already trying hard to 
use it against them, and that he had secretly sent the Earl of 
Newcastle to Hull, to secure a valuable magazine of arms and 
gunpowder that was there. In those times, every country had 
its own magazines of arms and powder, for its own train-bands, 
or militia; so the Parliament brought in a bill claiming the 
right (which up to this time had belonged to the king) of ap- 
pointing the lord lieutenants of counties, who commanded these 
train-bands ; also, of having all the forts, castles, and garrisons 
in the kingdom put into the hands of such governors as they, 
the Parliament, could confide in. It also passed a law depriv- 
ing the bishops of their votes. The king gave his assent to 
that bill, but would not abandon the right of appointing the 
lord lieutenants, though he said he was willing to appoint such 
as might be suggested to him by the Parliament. When the 
Earl of Pembroke ^sked him whether he would not give way 



3o6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. I 

on that question for a time, he said, " By God ! not for one 
hour ; " and upon this he and the Parliament went to war. 

His young daughter was betrothed to the Prince of Orange 
On pretence of taking her to the country of her future husbind, 
the queen was already got safely away to Holland, there to 
pawn the crown-jewels for money to raise an army on the king's 
side. The lord admiral being sick, the House of Commons now 
named the Earl of Warwick to hold his place for a year. The 
king named another gentleman ; the House of Commons took 
its own way, and the Earl of Warwick became lord admiral 
without the king's consent. The Parliament sent orders down 
to Hull to have that magazine removed to London ; the king 
went down to take it himself. The citizens would not admit 
him into the town, and the governor would not admit him into 
the castle. The Parliament resolved, that whatever the two 
Houses passed, and the king would not consent to, should be 
called an Ordinance, and should be as much a law as if he did 
consent to it. The king protested against this, and gave notice 
that these ordinances were not to be obeyed. The king, at- 
tended by the majority of the House of Peers, and by many 
members of the House of Commons, established himself at 
York. The chancellor went to him with the Great Seal, and 
the Parliament made a new Great Seal. The queen sent over 
a ship full of arms and ammunition, and the king issued letters 
to borrow money at high interest. The Parliament raised 
twenty regiments of foot, and seventy-five troops of horse ; and 
the people willingly aided them with their money, plate, jewelry, 
and trinkets, — the married women even with their wedding- 
rings. Every member of parliament who could raise a troop or 
a regiment in his own part of the country dressed it according 
to his taste and in his own colors, and commanded it. Fore- 
most among them all, Oliver Cromwell raised a troop of horse, 
thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly well armed, who were, 
perhaps, the best soldiers that ever were seen. 

In some of their proceedings, this famous Parliament passed 
the bounds of previous law and custom, yielded to and favored 
riotous assemblages of the people, and acted tyrannically in 
imprisoning some who differed from the popular leaders. But 
again, you are always to remember that the twelve years during 
which the king had had his own wilful way had gone before \ 
and that nothing could make the times what they might, could, 
would, or should have been, if those twelve years had never 
rolled away. 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 307 

Third Part. 

I shall not try tq relate the particulars of the great civil 
war between King Charles the First and the Long Parliament, 
which lasted nearly four years, and a full account of which 
would fill many large books. It was a sad thing that Eng- 
lishmen should once more be fighting against Englishmen on 
English ground ; but it is some consolation to know that on 
both sides there was great humanity, forbearance, and honor. 
The soldiers of the Parliament were far more remarkable for 
these good qualities than the soldiers of the king (many of 
whom fought for mere pay, without much caring for the cause) \ 
but those of the nobility and gentry who were on the king's 
side were so brave, and so faithful to him, that their conduct 
cannot but command our highest admiration. Among them 
were great numbers of Catholics, who took the royal side be- 
cause the queen was so strongly of their persuasion. 

The king might have distinguished some of these gallant 
spirits, if he had been as generous a spirit himself, by giving 
them the command of his army. Instead of that, however, 
true to his old high notions of royalty, he intrusted it to his 
two nephews. Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice, who were of 
royal blood, and came over from abroad to help him. It might 
have been better for him if they had stayed away ; since Prince 
Rupert was an impetuous, hot-headed fellow, whose only idea 
was to dash into battle at all times and seasons, and lay about 
him. 

The general-in-chief of the Parliamentary army was the 
Earl of Essex, a gentleman of honor and an excellent soldier. 
A little while before the war broke out, there had been some 
rioting at Westminster, between certain officious law-students 
and noisy soldiers, and the shopkeepers and their apprentices 
and the general people in the streets. At that time the king's 
friends called the crowd Roundheads, because the apprentices 
wore short hair ; the crowd, in return, called their opponents 
Cavaliers, meaning that they were a blustering set, who pre- 
tended to be very military. These two words now began to 
be used to distinguish the two sides in the civil war. The 
royalists also called the parliamentary men Rebels and Rogues, 
while the parliament men called them Malignants, and spoke of 
themselves as the Godly, the Honest, &c. 

The war broke out at Portsmouth, where that double traitor 
Goring had again gone over to the king, and was besieged by 
the Parliamentary troops, Upon this, the king proqlainied the 



3o8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Earl of Essex, and the officers serving under him, traitors, and 
called upon his loyal subjects to meet him in arms, at Notting^ 
ham, on the 25th of August. But his loyal subjects came about 
him in scanty numbers ; and it was a windy, gloomy day, and 
the royal standard got blown down ; and the whole affair was 
very melancholy. The chief engagements after this took place 
in the vale of the Red Horse near Banbury, at Brentford, at 
Devizes, at Chalgrave Field (where Mr. Hampden, was so sorely 
wounded, while fighting at the head of his men, that he died 
within a week), at Newbury (in which battle Lord Falkland, 
one of the best noblemen on the king's side, was killed), at 
Leicester, at Naseby, at Winchester, at Marston Moor near 
York, at Newcastle, and in many other parts of England and 
Scotland. These battles were attended with various successes. 
At one time, the king was victorious ; at another time, the Par 
liament. But almost all the great and busy towns were against 
the king ; and when it was considered necessary to fortify 
London, all ranks of people, from laboring men and women up 
to lords and ladies, worked hard together with heartiness and 
good-will. The most distinguished leaders on the parliamentary 
side were Hampden, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and, above all, Oliver 
Cromwell, and his son-in-law Ireton. 

During the whole of this war, the people, to whom it was 
very expensive and irksome, and to whom it was. made the 
more distressing by almost every family being divided, — some 
of its members attaching themselves to one side and some to 
the other, — were over and over again most anxious for peace. 
So were some of the best men in each cause. Accordingly, 
treaties of peace were discussed between commissioners from 
the Parliament and the king, — at York, at Oxford (where the 
king held a little parliament of his own), and at Uxbridge. 
But they came to nothing. In all these negotiations, and in all 
his difficulties, the king showed himself at his best. He was 
courageous, cool, self-possesssed, and clever ; but the old taint 
of his character was always in him, and he was never for one 
single moment to be trusted. Lord Clarendon, the historian, 
one of his highest admirers, supposes that he had unhappily 
promised the queen never to make peace without her consent, 
and that this must often be taken as his excuse. He never 
kept his word from night to morning. He signed a cessation 
of hostilities with the blood-stained Irish rebels for a sum of 
money, and invited the Irish regiments over to help him against 
the Parliament. In the battle of Naseby, his cabinet was 
seized, and was found to contain a correspondence with th^ 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 309 

queen, in which he expressly told her that he had deceived the 
Parliament, — a mongrel Parliament, he called it now, as an im- 
provement on his old term of vipers, — in pretending to recog- 
nize it, and to treat with it ; and from which it further appeared 
that he had long been in secret treaty with the Duke of Lop 
raine for a foreign army of ten thousand men. Disappointed 
in this, he sent a most devoted friend of his, the Earl of Gla- 
morgan, to Ireland, to conclude a secret treaty with the Catholic 
powers, to send him an Irish army of ten thousand men ; in 
return for which he was to bestow great favors on the Catholic 
religion. And when this treaty was discovered in the carriage 
of a fighting Irish archbishop who was killed in one of tne 
many skirmishes of those days, he basely denied and deserted 
his attached friend, the earl, on his being charged with high 
treason ; and — even worse than this — had left blanks in the 
secret instructions he gave with his own kingly hand, expressly 
that he might thus save himself. 

At last, on the 27th day of April, 1646, the king found him- 
self in the city of Oxford, so surrounded by the parliamentary 
army, who were closing in upon him on all sides, that he felt 
that if he would escape he must delay no longer. So that 
night, having altered the cut of his hair and beard, he was 
dressed up as a servant, and put upon a horse with a cloak 
strapped behind him, and rode out of the town behind one of 
his own faithful followers, with a clergyman of that country, 
who knew the road well, for a guide. He rode towards Lon- 
don as far as Harrow, and then altered his plans, and resolved, 
it would seem, to go to the Scottish camp. The Scottish men 
had been invited over to help the parliamentary army, and had 
a large force then in England. The king was so desperately 
intriguing in everything he did, that it is doubtful what he ex- 
actly meant by this step. He took it, anyhow, and delivered 
himself up to the Earl of Leven, the Scottish general -in-chief, 
who treated him as an honorable prisoner. Negotiations be- 
tween the Parliament on the one hand, and the Scottish au- 
thorities on the other, as to what should be done with him, 
lasted until the following February. Then, when the king had 
refused to the Parliament the concession of that old militia 
point for twenty years, and had refused to Scotland the recogni- 
tion of its solemn league and covenant, Scotland got a hand- 
some sum for its army and its help, and the king into the bar- 
gain. He was taken, by certain parliamentary commissioners 
appointed to receive him, to one of his own houses, called 
Holmby House, near Althorpe, in Northamptonshire. 



po A CmLD'S ms TOR Y OP EMGLA M£>. 

While the civil war was still in progress, John Pym died, 
and was buried with great honor in Westminster Abbey, — not 
with greater honor than he deserved, for the liberties of Eng- 
lishmen owe a mighty debt to Pym and Hampden. The war 
was but newly over when the Earl of Essex died, of an illness 
brought on by his having overheated himself in a stag-hunt in 
Windsor Forest. He, too, was buried in Westminster Abbey, 
with great state. I wish it were not necessary to add that 
Archbishop Laud died upon the scaffold, when the war was 
not yet done. His trial lasted in all nearly a year ; and, it 
being doubtful even then whether the charges brought against 
him amounted to treason, the odious old contrivance of the 
worst kings was resorted to, and a bill of attainder was brought 
in against him. He was a violently prejudiced and mischiev- 
ous person ; had had strong ear-cropping and nose-splitting 
propensities, as you know ; and had done a world of harm. 
But he died peaceably, and like a brave old man. 

Fourth Part. 

When the Parliament had got the king into their hands, 
they became very anxious to get rid of their army, in which 
Oliver Cromwell had begun to acquire great power ; not only 
because of his courage and high abilities, but because he pro- 
fessed to be very sincere in the Scottish sort of Puritan religion, 
that was then exceedingly popular among the soldiers. They 
were as much opposed to the bishops as to the pope himself ; 
^nd the very privates, drummers, and trumpeters, had such an 
inconvenient habit of starting up and preaching long-winded dis- 
courses, that I would not have belonged to that army on any 
account. 

So the Parliament, being far from sure but that the army 
might begin to preach and fight against them, now it had nothing 
else to do, proposed to disband the greater part of it, to send 
another part to serve in Ireland against the rebels, and to keep 
only a small force in England. But the army would not con- 
sent to be broken up, except upon its own conditions ; and when 
the Parliament showed an intention of compelling it, it acted 
for itself in an unexpected manner. A certain cornet, of the 
name of Joice, arrived at Holmby House one night, attended 
by four hundred horsemen, went into the king's room with his 
hat in one hand and a pistol in the other, and told the king that 
he had come to take him away. The king was willing enough 
to go, and only stipulated that he should be publicly required 



ENGLANJ? ViVDER CHARLES THE ElUST. 



3ii 



to do so next morning. The next morning, accordingly, he 
appeared on the top of the steps of the house, and asked COf^ 
net Joice before his men and the guard set there by the Parlia- 
ment, what authority he had for taking him away ? To this 
Cornet Joice replied, " The authority of the army." " Have 
you a written commission t " said the king. Joice, pointing to 
his four hundred men on horseback, replied, " That is my com- 
mission." " Well," said the king, smiling as if he were pleased, 
"1 never before read such a commission ; but it is written in a 
fair and legible character. This is a company of as handsome, 
proper gentlemen as I have seen a long while." He was asked 
where he would like to live, and he said at Newmarket. So to 
Newmarket he and Cornet Joice and the four hundred horse- 
men rode ; the king remarking, in the same smiling way, 
that he could ride as far at a spell as Cornet Joice or any man 
there. 

The king quite believed, I think, that the army were his 
friends. He said as much to Fairfax when that general, Oliver 
Cromwell, and Ireton went to persuade him to return to the 
custody of the Parliament. He preferred to remain as he was, 
and resolved to remain as he was. And when the army moved 
nearer and nearer to London to frighten the Parliament into 
yielding to their demands, they took the king with them. It 
was a deplorable thing that England should be at the mercy of 
a great body of soldiers with arms in their hands , but the king 
certainly favored them, at this important time of his life, as com- 
pared with the more lawful power that tried to control him. It 
must be added, however, that they treated him, as yet, more re- 
spectfully and kindly than the Parliament had done. They 
allowed him to be attended by his own servants, to be splendidly 
entertained at various houses, and to see his children — at Caves- 
ham House, near Reading — for two days. Whereas the Parlia- 
ment had been rather hard with him, and had only allowed him 
to ride out and play at bowls. 

It is much to be believed, that if the king could have been 
trusted, even at this time, he might have been saved. Even 
Oliver Cromwell expressly said that he did believe that no man 
could enjoy his possessions in peace unless the king had his 
rights. He was not unfriendly towards the king ; he had been 
present when he received his children, and had been much 
affected by the pitiable nature of the scene ; he saw the king 
often ; he frequently walked and talked with him in the long 
galleries and pleasant gardens of the palace at Hampton Court, 
whither he was now removed ; and in all this risked something 



3t2 



A CmLHS HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



of his influence with the army. But the king was in secret 
hopes of help from the Scottish people ; and the moment he 
was encouraged to join them he began to be cool to his new 
friends, the army, and to tell the officers that they could not 
possibly do without him. At the very time, too, when he was 
promising to make Cromwell and Ireton noblemen, if they would 
help him up to his old height, he was writing to the queen that 
he meant to hang them. They both afterwards declared that 
they had been privately informed that such a letter would be 
found, on a certain evening, sewed up in a saddle which would 
be taken to the Blue Boar in Holborn to be sent to Dover ; and 
that they went there, disguised as common soldiers, and sat 
drinking in the inn-yard until a man came with the saddle, which 
they ripped up with their knives, and therein found the letter. 
I see little reason to doubt the story. It is certain that Oliver 
Cromwell told one of the king's most faithful followers that the 
king could not be trusted, and that he would not be answerable 
if anything amiss were to happen to him. Still, even after that 
he kept a promise he had made to the king, by letting him know 
that there was a plot with a certain portion of the army to seize 
him. I believe that, in fact, he sincerely wanted the king to 
escape abroad, and so to be got rid of without more trouble or 
danger. That Oliver himself had work enough with the army 
is pretty plain j for some of the troops were so mutinous against 
him, and against those who acted with him at this time, that he 
found it necessary to have one man shot at the head of his 
regiment to overawe the rest. 

The king, when he received Oliver's warning, made his 
escape from Hampton Court ; after some indecision and uncer- 
tainty, he went to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. At 
first he was pretty free there ; but even there, he carried on a 
pretended treaty with the Parliament, while he was really treat- 
ing with commissioners from Scotland to send an army into 
England to take his part. When he broke off this treaty with 
the Parliament (having settled with Scotland), and was treated 
as a prisoner, his treatment was not changed too soon, for he 
had plotted to escape that very night to a ship sent by the queen, 
which was lying off the island. 

He was doomed to be disappointed in his hopes from Scot 
land. The agreement he had made with the Scottish Commis^ 
sioners was not favorable enough to the religion of that country 
to please the Scottish clergy ; and they preached against it. 
The consequence was, that ^the army raised in Scotland and 
sent over was too small to do much ; and that, although it was 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE FIRST. 



Z^Z 



Tielped by a rising of the royalists in England and by good 
soldiers from Ireland, it could make no head against the parlia- 
mentary army under such men as Cromwell and Fairfax. The 
king's eldest son, the Prince of VYales, came over from Holland 
with nineteen ships (a part of the English fleet having gone 
over to him) to help his father : but nothing came of his voyage, 
and he was fain to return. The most remarkable event of this 
second civil war was the cruel execution by the Parliamentary 
General, of Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, two grand 
Royalist generals, who had bravely defended Colchester under 
every disadvantage of famine and distress for nearly three 
months. When Sir Charles Lucas was shot, Sir George Lisle 
kissed his body, and said to the soldiers who were to shoot him, 
" Come nearer, and make sure of me." " I warrant you. Sir 
George," said one of the soldiers, "we shall hit you." " Ay ? " 
he returned with a smile, " but I have been nearer to you, my 
friends, many a time, and you have missed me." 

The Parliament, after being fearfully bullied by the army, 
— who demanded to have seven members whom they disliked 
given up to them, — had voted that they would have nothing 
more to do with the king. On the conclusion, however, of this 
second civil war (which did not last more than six months), 
they appointed commissioners to treat with him. The king, 
then so far released again as to be allowed to live in a private 
house at Newport, in the Isle of Wight, managed his own part 
of the negotiation with a sense that was admired by all who 
saw him, and gave up, in the end, all that was asked of him, — 
even yielding (which he had steadily refused so far) to the tem- 
porary abolition of the bishops, and the transfer of their Church 
land to the crown. Still, with his old fatal vice upon him, 
when his best friends joined the commissioners in beseeching 
him to yield all those points as the only means of saving him- 
self from the army, he was plotting to escape from the island ; 
he was holding correspondence with his friends and the Catho- 
lics in Ireland, though declaring that he was not ; and he was 
writing, with his own hand, that, in w^hat he yielded, he meant 
nothing but to get time to escape. 

Matters were at this pass when the army, resolved to defy 
the Parliament, marched up to London. The Parliament, not 
afraid of them now, and boldly led by Hollis, voted that the 
king's concessions were sufficient ground for settling the peace 
of the kingdom. Upon that. Colonel Rich and Colonel Pride 
went down to the House of Commons with a regiment of 
horse-sQldiers and a regiment of foot j and Colonel Pride, 



^,4 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Standing in the lobby with a list of the members who were ob« 
noxious to the army in his hand, had them pointed out tc him 
as they came through, and took them all into custody. This 
proceeding was afterwards called by the people, for a joke, 
Pride's Purge. Cromwell was in the North, at the head of his 
men, at the time, but when he came home, approved of what 
had been done. 

What with imprisoning some members, and causing others 
to stay away, the army had now reduced the House of Com- 
mons to some fifty or so. These soon voted that it was treason 
in a king to make war against his parliament and his people, 
and sent an ordinance up to the House of Lords for the king's 
being tried as a traitor. The House of Lords, then sixteen in 
number, to a man rejected it. Thereupon, the Commons made 
an ordinance of their own, that they were the supreme govern- 
ment of the country, and would bring the king to trial. 

The king had been taken for security to a place called 
Hurst Castle, — a lonely house on a rock in the sea, connected 
with the coast of Hamsphire by a rough road two miles long at 
low water. Thence he was ordered to be removed to Wind- 
sor ; thence, after being but rudely used there, and having 
none but soldiers to wait upon him at table, he was brought up 
to St. James's Palace, in London, and told that his trial was 
appointed for next day. 

On Saturday, the 20th of January, 1649, this memorable trial 
began. The House of Commons had settled that a hundred and 
thirty-five persons should form the court ; and these were taken 
from the House itself, from among the officers of the army, and 
from among the lawyers and citizens. John Bradshaw, ser- 
jeant-at-law, was appointed president. The place was West- 
minster Hall. At the upper end, in a red velvet chair, sat the 
president, with his hat (lined with plates of iron for his protec- 
tion) on his head. The rest of the court sat on side benches, 
also wearing their hats. The king's seat was covered with 
velvet, like that of the president, and was opposite to it. He 
was brought from St. James's to Whitehall, and from Whitehall 
he came by water to his trial. 

When he came in he looked round very steadily on the 
court, and on the great number of spectators, and then sat 
down ; presently he got up and looked round again. On the 
indictment ** against Charles Stuart, for high treason," being 
read, he smiled several times ; and he denied the authority of 
the court, saying that there could be no parliament without a 
House of Lords, and that he saw no House of Lords there. 



E^GLANb UNDER CHARLBS THE FIRST. 315 

Also that the king ought to be there, and that he saw no 
king in the king's right place. Bradshavv^ replied, that the 
court was satisfied with its authority, and that its author- 
ity was God's authority and the kingdom's. He then ad- 
journed the court to the following Monday. On that day 
the trial was resumed, and went on all the week. When the 
Saturday came, as the king passed forward to his place in the 
hall, some soldiers and others cried for " justice ! " and execu- 
tion on him. That day, too, Bradshaw, like an angry sultan, 
wore a red robe, instead of the black robe he had worn before. 
The king was sentenced to death that day. As he went out, 
one solitary soldier said, " God bless you, sir ! " For this his 
officer struck him. The king said he thought the punishment 
exceeded the offence. The silver head of his walking-stick had 
fallen off while he leaned upon it, at one time of the trial. 
The accident seemed to disturb him, as if he thought it ominous 
of the falling of his own head ; and he admitted as much, now 
it was all over. 

Being taken back to Whitehall, he sent to the House of 
Commons, saying, that, as the time of his execution might be 
nigh, he wished he might be allowed to see his darling children. 
It was granted. On the Monday he was taken back to St. 
James's ; and his two children then in England, the Princess 
Elizabeth, thirteen years old, and the Duke of Gloucester, nine 
years old, were brought to take leave of him, from Sion House, 
near Brentford. It was a sad and touching scene, when he 
kissed and fondled those poor children, and made a little pres- 
ent of two diamond seals to the princess, and gave them tender 
messages to their mother (who little deserved them, for she had 
a lover of her own whom she married soon afterwards), and 
told them that he died "for the laws and liberties of the land." 
I am bound to say that I don't think he did ; but I daresay he 
believed so. 

There were ambassadors from Holland, that day, to inter- 
cede for the unhappy king, whom you and I both wish the 
Parliament had spared ; but they got no answer. The Scot- 
tish commissioners interceded too ; so did the Prince of Wales, 
by a letter in which he offered, as the next heir to the throne, 
to accept any conditions from the Parliament ; so did the 
queen, by letter likewise. Notwithstanding all, the warrant 
for the execution was this day signed. There is a story, that 
as Oliver Cromwell went to the table with the pen in his hand 
to put his signature to it, he drew his pen across the face of 
pne of the commissioners, who was standing near, and marke(j 
14 



3i6 A CHILD'S HISTORY OP ENGL AMD. 

it with ink. That commissioner had not signed his own name 
yet ; and the story adds, that, when he came to do it, he marked 
Cromwell's face with ink in the- same way. 

The king slept well, untroubled by the knowledge that it 
was his last night on earth, and rose on the 30th of January, 
two hours before day, and dressed himself carefully. He put 
on two shirts, lest he should tremble with the cold, and had 
his hair very carefully combed. The warrant had been directed 
to three officers of the army, — Colonel Hacker, Colonel 
Hunks, and Colonel Phayer. At ten o'clock, the first of these 
came to the door, and said it was time to go to Whitehall. 
The king, who had always been a quick walker, walked at his 
usual speed through the park, and called out to the guard, with 
his accustomed voice of command, " March on, apace ! " When 
he came to Whitehall, he was taken to his own bedroom, where 
a breakfast was set forth. As he had taken the sacrament, he 
would eat nothing more ; but at about the time when the 
church-bells struck twelve at noon (for he had to wait, through 
the scaffold not being ready), he took the advice of the good 
Bishop Juxon who was with him, and ate a little bread, and 
drank a glass of claret. Soon after he had taken this refresh- 
ment, Colonel Hacker came to the chamber with the warrant 
in his hand, and called for Charles Stuart. 

And then, through the long gallery of Whitehall Palace, 
which he had often seen light and gay and merry and crowded, 
in very different times, the fallen king passed along, until he 
came to the centre window of the Banqueting House, through 
which he emerged upon the scaffold, which was hung with 
black. He looked at the two executioners, who were dressed 
in black and masked ; he looked at the troops of soldiers on 
horseback and on foot, and all looked up at him in silence ; he 
looked at the vast array of spectators, filling up the view be- 
yond, and turning all their faces upon him, he looked at his old 
Palace of St. James's ; and he looked at the block. He seemed 
a little troubled to find that it was so low, and asked, " if there 
were no place higher." Then, to those upon the scaffold, he 
said, " that it was the Parliament who had begun the war, and 
not he ; but he hoped they might be guiltless too, as ill instru- 
ments had gone between them. In one respect," he said, " he 
suffered justly ; and that was because he had permitted an un 
just sentence to be executed on another." In this he referred 
to the Earl of Strafford. 

He was not at all afraid to die ; but he was anxious to die 
easily. When some one touched the axe while he was speak- 



ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 317 

ing, he broke off and called out, " Take heed of the axe ; take 
heed of the axe ! " He also said to Colonel Hacker, " Take 
care that they do not put me to pain." He told the executioner, 
" I shall say but very shart prayers, and then thrust out my 
hands," — as the sign to strike. 

He put his hair up under a white satin cap, which the bishop 
had carried, and said, " I have a good cause and a gracious 
God on my side." The bishop told him that he had but one 
stage more to travel in this weary world, and that, though it 
was a turbulent and troublesome stage, it was a short one, and 
would carry him a great way, — all the way from earth to heaven 
The king's last word, as he gave his cloak and the George — 
the decoration from his breast — to the bishop, was, " Remem 
ber ! " He then kneeled down, laid his head on the block, 
spread out his hands, and was instantly killed. One universal 
groan broke from the crowd ; and the soldiers, who had sat on 
their horses and stood in their ranks immovable as statues, 
were of a sudden all in motion, clearing the streets. 

Thus, in the forty-ninth year of his age, falling at the same 
time of his career as Strafford had fallen in his, perished 
Charles the First. With all my sorrow for him, I cannot agree 
with him that he died " the martyr of the people " , for the 
people had been martyrs to him, and to his ideas of a king's 
rights, long before. Indeed, I am afraid that he was but a bad 
judge of martyrs ; for he had called that infamous Duke of 
Buckingham " the Martyr of his Sovereign," 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 

Before sunset, on the memorable day on which King 
Charles the First was executed, the House of Commons passed 
an act declaring it treason in any one to proclaim the Prince of 
Wales, or anybody else, King of England. Soon afterwards, it 
declared that the House of Lords was useless and dangerous, 
and ought to be abolished ; and directed that the late king's 
statue should be taken down from the Royal Exchange in the 
city, and other public places. Having laid hold of some famous 
royalists who h^d escaped from prison, and having beheaded 



^i8 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Holland, and Lord Capel, in 
Palace Yard (all of whom died very courageously), they then 
appointed a Council of State to govern the country. It con- 
sisted of forty-one members, of whom five were peers. Brad- 
shaw was made president. The House of Commons also 
re-admitted members who had opposed the king's death, and 
made up its members to admit about a hundred and fifty. 

But it still had an army of more than fortv thousand men 
to deal with, and a very hard task it was to manage them. Be* 
fore the king's execution, the army had appointed some of its 
officers to remonstrate between them and the Parliament ; and 
now the common soldiers began to take that ofBce upon them- 
selves. The regiments under orders for Ireland mutinied ; one 
troop of horse in the city of London seized their own flag, and 
refused to obey orders. For this the ringleader was shot, 
which did not mend the matter ; for both his comrades and the 
people made a public funeral for him, and accompanied the 
body to the grave with sound of trumpets, and with a gloomy 
p>rocession of persons carrying bundles of rosemary steeped in 
blood. Oliver was the only man to deal with such difficulties 
as these ; and he soon cut them short by bursting at midnight 
into the town of Burford, near Salisbury, where the mutineers 
were sheltered, taking four hundred of them prisoners, and 
shooting a number of them by sentence of court-martial. The 
soldiers soon found, as all men did, that Oliver was not a -man 
to be trifled with. And there was an end of the mutiny. 

The Scottish Parliament did not know Oliver yet ; so, on 
hearing of the king's execution, it proclaimed the Prince of 
Wales, King Charles the Second, on condition of his respecting 
the Solemn League and Covenant. Charles was abroad at that 
time, and so was Montrose, from whose help he had hopes 
enough to keep him holding on and off with commissioners 
from Scotland, just as his father might have done. These 
hopes were soon at an end ; for Montrose, having raised a few 
hundred exiles in Germany, and landed with them in Scotland, 
found that the people there, instead of joining him, deserted 
the country at his approach. He was soon taken prisoner, and 
carried to Edinburgh. There he was received v/ith every pos- 
sible insult, and carried to prison in a cart, his officers going 
two and two before him. He was sentenced by the Parliament 
to be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, to have his head set 
on a spike in Edinburgh, and his limbs distributed in other 
places, according to the old barbarous manner. He said he 
li^d always acted under the royal orders^ and onl^ wished hf 



ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 319 

had limbs enough to be distributed through Christendom, that 
it might be the more widely known how loyal he had been. 
He went to the scaffold in a bright and brilliant dress, and 
made a bold end at thirty-eight years of age. The breath was 
scarcely out of his body when Charles abandoned his memory, 
and denied that he had ever given him orders to rise in his be- 
half. O, the family failing was strong in that Charles then ! 

Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command 
the army in Ireland, where he took a terrible vengeance for the 
sanguinary rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, particularly 
in the siege of Drogheda, where no quarter was given, and 
where he found at least a thousand of the inhabitants shut up 
together in the great church, every one of whom was killed by 
his soldiers, usually known as Oliver's Ironsides. There were 
numbers of friars and priests among them ; and Oliver gruffly 
wrote home in his despatch that these were "knocked on the 
head " like the rest. 

But Charles having got over to Scotland, where the men of 
the Solemn League and Covenant led him a prodigiously dull 
life, and made him very weary with long sermons and grim 
Sundays, the Parliament called the redoubtable Oliver home tc* 
knock the Scottish men on the head for setting up that prince. 
Oliver left his son-in-law, Ireton, as general in Ireland, in his 
stead (he died there afterwards), and he imitated the example of 
his father-in-law with such good will, that he brought the countr)( 
to subjection, and laid it at the feet of the Parliament. In the 
end, they passed an act for the settlement of Ireland, generally 
pardoning all the common people, but exempting from this grace 
such of the wealthier sort as had been concerned in the rebellion, 
or in any killing of Protestants, or who refused to lay down their 
arms. Great numbers of Irish were got out of the country to 
serve under Catholic powers abroad ; and a quantity of land 
was declared to have been forfeited by past offences, and was 
given to people who had lent money to the Parliament early in 
the war. These were sweeping measures ; but if Oliver Crom- 
well had had his own way fully, and had stayed in Ireland, he 
would have done more yet. 

However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for 
Scotland ; so home Oliver came, and was made commander of 
all the forces of the Commonwealth of England, and in three 
days away he went with sixteen thousand soldiers to fight the 
Scottish men. Now, the Scottish men being then — as you will 
generally find them now — mighty cautious, reflected that the 
troops they had were not used to w^r like the Ironsides^ and 



320 ^ cmLD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

would be beaten in an open light. Therefore they said, " If 
we lie quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh here, and if all the 
farmers come into the town and desert the country, the Iron- 
sides will be driven out by iron hunger, and be forced to go 
away." This was, no doubt, the wisest plan ; but as the Scot- 
tish clergy would interfere with what they knew nothing about, 
and would perpetually preach long sermons, exhorting the sol- 
diers to come out and fight, the soldiers got it in their heads 
that they absolutely must come out and fight. Accordingly, in 
an evil hour for themselves, they came out of their safe position. 
Oliver fell upon them instantly, and killed three thousand, and 
took ten thousand prisoners. 

To gratify the Scottish Parliament, and preserve their favor, 
Charles had signed a declaration they laid before him, reproach- 
ing the memory of his father and mother, and representing him- 
self as a most religious prince, to whom the Solemn League and 
Covenant was as dear as life. He meant no sort of truth in 
this, and soon atterwards galloped away on horseback to join 
some tiresome Highland friends, who were always flourishing 
dirks and broadswords. He was overtaken, and induced to re- 
turn ; but this attempt, which was called " The Start," did him 
just so much service, that they did not preach quite such long 
sermons at him afterwards as they had done before. 

On the ist of January, 1651, the Scottish people crowned 
him at Scone. He immediately took the chief command of an 
army of twenty thousand men, and marched to Stirling. His 
hopes were heightened, I daresay, by the redoubtable Oliver 
being ill of an ague , but Oliver scrambled out of bed in no 
time, and went to work with such energy that he got behind 
the royalist army, and cut it off from all communication with 
Scotland. There was nothing for it then but to go on to Eng- 
land ; so it went on as far as Worcester, where the mayor and 
some of the gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second straight- 
way. His proclamation, however, was of little use to him : for 
very few royalists appeared ; and, on the very same day, two 
people were publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his 
cause. Up came Oliver to Worcester too, at double-quick 
speed j and he and his Ironsides so laid about them in the 
great battle which was fought there, that they completely beat 
the Scottish men, and destroyed the royalist army, though the 
Scottish men fought so gallantly that it took five hours to do. 

The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did 1 im 
good service long afterwards ; for it induced many of the generous 
English people to take a romantic interest in him, and to think 



ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 321 

much better of him than he ever deserved. He fled in the 
night, with not more than sixty followers, to the house of a 
Catholic lady in Staffordshire. There, for his greater safety, 
the whole sixty left him. He cropped his hair, stained his face 
and hands brown as if they were sunburnt, put on the clothes 
of a laboring countryman, and went out in the morning with his 
axe in his hand, accompanied by four wood-cutters who were 
brothers, and another man who was their brother-in-law. These 
good fellows made a bed for him under a tree, as the weather 
was very bad , and the wife of one of them brought him food to 
eat ; and the old mother of the four brothers came and fell 
down on her knees before him in the wood, and thanked God 
that her sons were engaged in saving his life. At night, he 
came out of the forest, and went on to another house which was 
near the river Severn, with the intention of passing mto Wales ; 
but the place swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges were 
guarded, and all the boats were made fast. So, after lying in 
a hayloft covered over with hay some time, he came out of his 
place, attended by Colonel Careless, a Catholic gentleman v;ho 
had met him there, and with whom he lay hid, all next day, up 
in the shady branches of a fine old oak. It was lucky for the 
king that it was September time, and that the leaves had not 
begun to fall, since he and the colonel, perched up in this tree, 
could catch glimpses of the soldiers riding about below, and 
could hear the crash in the wood as they went about beating 
the boughs. 

After this, he walked and walked until his feet were all 
blistered \ and having been concealed all one day in a house, 
which was searched by the troopers while he was there, went 
with Lord Wilmot, another of his good friends, to a place called 
Bentley, where one Miss Lane, a Protestant lady, had obtained 
a pass to be allowed to ride through the guards to see a relation 
of hers near Bristol. Disguised as a servant, he rode in the 
saddle before this young lady to the house of Sir John Winter, 
while Lord Wilmot rode there boldly, like a plain country gen- 
ieman, with dogs at his heels. It happened that Sir John 
Winter's butler had been servant in Richmond Palace, and 
knew Charles the moment he set eyes upon him ; but the butler 
was faithful and kept the secret. As no ship could be found 
to carry him abroad, it was planned that he should go — still 
travelling with Miss Lane as her servant — to another house, at 
Trent, near Sherborne va Dorsetshire ; and then Miss Lane 
and her cousin, Mr. Lascelles, who had gene on horseback be- 
side her all the way, went home. 1 hope Miss Lane was going 

2i 



322 ^ CmlD^S msTORV OF ENGLAND. 

to marry that cousin ; for I am sure she must have been a brave, 
kind girl. If I had been that cousin I should certainly have 
loved Miss Lane. 

When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe 
at Trent, a ship was hired at Lyme, the master of which en- 
gaged to take two gentlemen to France. In the evening of the 
same day, the king — now riding as servant before another young 
lady — set off for a public -house at a place called Charmouth, 
where the captain of the vessel was to take him on board. But 
the captain's wife, being afraid of her husband getting into 
trouble, locked him up and would not let him sail. Then the)i 
went away to Bridport ; and, coming to the inn there, found 
the stable-yard full of soldiers who were on the look-out for 
Charles, and who talked about him while they drank. He had 
such presence of mind, that he led the horses of his party 
through the yard as any other servant might have done, and 
said, " Come out of the way, you soldiers ; let us have room 
to pass here ! " As he went along, he met a half-tipsy ostler, 
who rubbed his eyes and said to him, " Why, I was formerly 
servant to Mr. Potter at Exeter, and surely I have sometimes 
seen you there, young man ? " He certainly had, for Charles 
had lodged there. His ready answer was, " Ah, I did live with 
him once ; but I have no time to talk now. We'll have a pot 
of beer together when I come back." 

From this diingerous place he returned to Trent, and lay 
there concealed several days. Then he escaped to Heale, near 
Salisbury ; where, in the house of a widow lady, he was hidden 
five days, until the master of a collier lying off Shoreham, in 
Sussex, undertook, to convey a " gentleman " to France. On 
the night of the 15th of October, accompanied by two colonels 
and a merchant, the king rode to Brighton, then a little fishing- 
village, to give the captain of the ship a supper before going on 
board ; but so many people knew him, that this captain knew 
him too, and not only he but the landlord and landlady also. 
Before he went away, the landlord came behind his chair, kissed 
his hand, and said he hoped to live to be a lord and to see his 
wife a lady ; at which Charles laughed. They had had a good 
supper by this time, and plenty of smoking and drinking, at 
which the king was a first-rate hand ; so the captain assured 
him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed 
that the captain should pretend to sail to Deal and that Charles 
should address the sailors, and say he was a gentleman in debt, 
who was running away from his creditors, and that he hoped 
they would join him in persuading the captain to put him ashore 



ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 



323 



in France. As the king acted his part very well indeed, and 
gave the sailors twenty shillings to drink, they begged the cap- 
tain to do what such a worthy gentleman asked. He pretended 
to yield to their entreaties, and the king got safe to Normandy. 

Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by 
plenty of forts and soldiers put there by Oliver, the Parliament 
would have gone on quietly enough, as far as fighting with any 
foreign enemy went, but for getting into trouble with the Dutch, 
who, in the spring of the year 165 1, sent a fleet into the Downs 
under their Admiral Van Tromp, to call upon the bold English 
Admiral Blake (who was there with half as many ships as the 
Dutch) to strike his flag. Blake fired a raging broadside in- 
stead, and beat off Van Tromp ; who, in the autumn, came back 
again with seventy ships and challenged the bold Blake — who 
still was only half as strong — to fight him. Blake fought him 
all day ; but finding that the Dutch were too many for him, got 
quietly off at night. What does Van Tromp upon this, but 
goes cruising and boasting about the Channel, between the 
North Foreland and the Isle of Wight, with a great Dutch 
broom tied to his masthead, as a sign that he could and would 
sweep the English off the sea ! Within three months Blake 
lowered his tone though, and his broom too ; for he and two 
other bold commanders. Dean and Monk, fought him three 
whole days, took twenty-three of his ships, shivered his broom 
to pieces, and settled his business. 

Things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to 
complain to the Parliament that they were not governing the 
nation properly, and to hint that they thought they could do it 
better themselves. Oliver, who had now made up his mind to 
be the head of the state, or nothing at all, supported them in 
this, and called a meeting of officers and his own parliamentary 
friends, at his lodgings in Whitehall, to consider the best way 
of getting rid of the Parliament. It had now lasted just as 
many years as the king's unbridled power had lasted, before it 
came into existence. The end of the deliberation was, that 
Oliver went down to the House in his usual plain black dress, 
with his usual gray worsted stockings, but with an unusual party 
of soldiers behind him. These last he left in the lobby, and 
then went in and sat down. Presently he got up, made the 
Parliament a speech, told them that the Lord had done with them, 
stamped his foot, and said, " You are ho Parliament. Bring 
them in ; bring them in ! " At this signal the door flew open, 
and the soldiers appeared. " This is not honest," said Sir 
Harry Vane, one of the members. " *^ir Harry Vane I " crie4 



324 ^ CHILD'S mSTORY OF ENGLAi^D, 

Cromwell ; " O Sir Harry Vane ! the Lord deliver me from Sir 
Harry Vane ! " Then he pointed out members one by one, and 
said this man was a drunkard, and that man a dissipated fellow, 
and that man a liar, and so on. Then he caused the speaker 
to be walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the House, 
called the mace upon the table, — which is a sign that the House 
is sitting, — " a fool's bauble," and said, " Here, carry it away ! " 
Being obeyed in all these orders, he quietly locked the door, 
put the key in his pocket, walked back to Whitehall again, 
and told his friends, who were still assembled there, what he 
had done. 

They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary 
proceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own 
way j which Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and 
which he said was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon 
earth. In this Parliament there sat a well-known leather-seller, 
who had taken the singular name of Praise God Barebones, and 
from whom it was called, for a joke, Barebones' Parliament, 
though its general name was the Little Parliament. As it soon 
appeared that it was not going to put Oliver in the first place, 
it turned out to be not at all like the beginning of heaven upon 
earth, and Oliver said it really was not to be borne with. So 
he cleared off that Parliament in much the same way as he had 
disposed of the other ; and then the council of officers decided 
that he must be made the supreme authority of the kingdom, 
under the title of the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. 

So, on the i6th of December, 1653, a great procession was 
formed at Oliver's door ; and he came out in a black velvet 
suit and a big pair of boots, and got into his coach, and went 
down to Westminster, attended by the judges, and the Lord 
Mayor, and the aldermen, and all the other great and wonder- 
ful personages of the country. There, in the Court of Chancery, 
he publicly accepted the office of Lord Protector. Then he 
was sworn, and the city sword was handed to him, and the seal 
was handed to him, and all the other things were handed to 
him which are usually handed to the kings and queens on state 
occasions. When Oliver had handed them all back, he was 
quite made, and completely finished off as Lord Protector ; 
and several of the Ironsides preached about it at great length, 
all the evening. 

Second Part. 

Oliver Cromwell,— whom the people long called Old Noll,—* 



ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 325 

in accepting the office of Protector, had bound himself by a 
certain paper which was handed to him, called '' The Instru- 
ment," to summon a parliament, consisting of between four and 
five hundred members, in the election of which neither the 
Royalists nor the Catholics were to have any share. He had 
also pledged himself that this parliament should not be dis- 
solved without its own consent until it had sat five months. 

When this parliament met, Oliver made a speech to them of 
three hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for the 
credit and happiness of the country. To keep down the more 
violent members, he required them to sign a recognition of 
what they were forbidden by "The Instrument" to do; which 
was chiefly to take the power from one single person at the 
head of the state, or to command the army. Then he dismissed 
them to go to work, With his usual vigor and resolution he 
went to work himself with some frantic-preachers, who were 
rather overdoing their sermons in calling him a villain and a 
tyrant, by shutting up their chapels, and sending a few of them 
off to prison. 

There was not at that time in England, or anywhere else, a 
man so able to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. 
Although he ruled with a strong hand, and levied a very heavy 
tax on the Royalists (but not until they had plotted against his 
life), he ruled wisely, and as the times required. He caused 
England to be so respected abroad, that I wish some lords and 
gentlemen, who have governed it under kings and queens in 
later days, would have taken a leaf out of Oliver Cromwell's 
book. He sent bold Admiral Blake to the Mediterranean Sea, 
to make the Duke of Tuscany pay sixty thousand pounds for 
injuries he had done to British subjects, and spoliation he had 
committed on English merchants. He further despatched him 
and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, to have every Eng- 
lish ship and every Englishman delivered up to him that had 
been taken by pirates in those parts. All this was gloriously 
done ; and it began to be thoroughly well known, all over the 
world, that England was governed by a man in earnest, who 
would not allow the English name to be insulted or slighted 
anywhere. 

These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet 
to sea against the Dutch ; and the two powers, each with one 
hundred ships upon its side, met in the English Channel off 
the North Foreland, where the fight lasted all day long. Dean 
was killed in this fight ; but Monk, who commanded in the 
same ship with him, threw his cloak over his body, that the 



J26 '^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

sailors might not know of his death, and be disheartened 
Nor were they. The English broadsides so exceedingly aston- 
ished the Dutch, that they sheared off at last, though the 
redoubtable Van Tromp fired upon them with his own guns 
for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards the two fleets engaged 
again, off the coast of Holland. There the valiant Van Tromp 
was shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave in, and peace 
was made. 

Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domineer- 
ing and bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only 
claimed a right to all the gold and silver that could be found 
in South America, and treated the ships of all other countries 
who visited those regions as pirates, but put English subjects 
into the horrible Spanish prisons of the Inquisition. So Oliver 
told the Spanish ambassador that English ships must be free 
to go wherever they would, and that English merchants must 
not be thrown into those same dungeons ; no, not for the pleas- 
ure of all the priests in Spain. To this the Spanish ambassa^ 
dor replied, that the gold and silver country, and the Holy 
Inquisition, were his king's two eyes, neither of which he could 
submit to have put out. Very well, said Oliver, then he was 
afraid he (Oliver) must damage those two eyes directly. 

So another fleet was despatched under two commanders, 
Penn and Venables> for Hispaniola ; where, however, the 
Spaniards got the better of the fight. Consequently, the fleet 
came home again, after taking Jamaica on the way. Oliver, 
indignant with the two commanders who had not done what 
bold Admiral Blake would have done, clapped them both into 
prison, declared war against Spain, and made a treaty with 
France, in virtue of which it was to shelter the king and his 
brother, the Duke of York, no longer. Then he sent a fleet 
abroad under bold Admiral Blake, which brought the King of 
Portugal to his senses, — ^just to keep its hand in, — and then 
engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took two 
more, laden with silver to the value of two millions of pounds ; 
which dazzling prize was brought from Portsmouth to London 
in wagons, with the populace of all the towns and villages - 
through which the wagons passed, shouting with all their might. 
After this victory, bold Admiral Blake sailed away to the 
port of Santa Cruz to cut off the Spanish treasure-ships coming 
from Mexico. There he found them, ten in number, with 
seven others to take care of them, and a big castle, and seven 
batteries, all roaring and blazing away at him with great guns. 
Blake cared no more for great guns than for pop-guns,^--n<? 



ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL 



327 



more foi their hot iron balls than for snowballs. He dashed 
into the harbor, captured and burnt every one of the ships, 
and came sailing out again triumphantly, with the victorious 
English flag flying at his mast-head. This was the last triumph 
of this great commander, who had sailed and fought until he 
was quite worn out. He died as his successful ship was com- 
ing into Plymouth Harbor amidst the joyful acclamations of 
the people, and was buried in state in Westminster Abbey, — 
not to lie there long. 

Over and above all this, Oliver found that the Vaudois, or 
Protestant people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently 
treated by the Catholic powers, and were even put to death for 
their religion, in an audacious and bloody manner. Instantly 
he informed those powers that this was a thing which Protes- 
tant England would not allow; and he speedily carried his 
point, through the might of his great name, and established 
their right to worship God in peace after their own harmless 
manner. 

Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting 
with the French against the Spaniards, that, after they had as- 
saulted the town of Dunkirk together, the French king in per- 
son gave it up to the English, that it might be a token to them 
of their might and valor. 

There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic 
religionists (who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men), and 
among the disappointed republicans. He had a difficult game 
to play ; for the royalists were always ready to side with either 
party against him. The " King over the water," too, as Charles 
was called, had no scruples about plotting with any one against 
his life j although there is reason to suppose that he would 
willingly have married one of his daughters, if Oliver would 
have had such a son-in-law. There was a certain Colonel 
Saxby of the army, once a great supporter of Oliver's, but now 
turned against him, who was a grievous trouble to him through 
all this part of his career ; and who came and v/ent between 
the discontented in England and Spain, and Charles, who put 
himself in alliance with Spain on being thrown off by France. 
This man died in prison at last ; but not until there had been 
very serious plots between the royalists and republicans, and 
an actual rising of them in England, when they burst into the 
city of Salisbury on a Sunday night, seized the judges who 
were going to hold the assizes there next day, and would have 
hanged them but for the merciful objections of the more tem- 
perate of their number, Oliver was so vigorous and shrewd 



328 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

that he soon put this revolt down, as he did most other con- 
spiracies ; and it was well for one of its chief managers — that 
same Lord Wilmot who had assisted in Charles's flight, and 
was now Earl of Rochester — that he made his escape. Oliver 
seemed to have eyes and ears everywhere, and secured such 
sources of information as his enemies little dreamed of. There 
was a chosen body of six persons, called the Sealed Knot, who 
were in the closest and most secret confidence of Charles. 
One of the foremost of these very men, a Sir Richard Willis, 
reported to Oliver everything that passed among them, and had 
two hundred a year for it. 

Miles Syndarcomb, also of the old army, was another con- 
spirator against the Protector. He, and a man named Cecil, 
bribed one of his life-guards to let them have good notice when 
he was going out, — intending to shoot him from a window. But 
owing either to his caution or his good fortune, they could never 
get an aim at him. Disappointed in this design, they got into 
the chapel in Whitehall, with a basketful of combustibles, which 
were to explode, by means of a slow match, in six hours ; then, 
in the noise and confusion of the fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. 
But the life-guardsman himself disclosed this plot ; and they 
were seized, and Miles died (or killed himself in prison) a little 
while before he was ordered for execution. A few such plotters 
Oliver caused to be beheaded, a few more to be hanged, and 
many more, including those who rose in arms against him, to 
be sent as slaves to the West Indies. If he were rigid, he was 
impartial too, in asserting the laws of England. When a Por- 
tuguese nobleman, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, 
killed a London citizen in mistake for another man with whom 
he had had a quarrel, Oliver caused him to be tried before a 
jury of Englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in 
spite of the entreaties of all the ambassadors in London. 

One of Oliver's own friends, the Duke of Oldenburgh, in 
sending him a present of six fine coach-horses, was very near 
doing more to please the royalists than all the plotters put to- 
gether. One day, Oliver went with his coach, drawn by these 
six horses, into Hyde Park, to dine with his secretary and some 
of his other gentlemen under the trees there. After dinner, 
being merry, he took it into his head to put his friends inside 
and to drive them home, a postilion riding one of the fojemost 
horses, as the custom was. On account of Oliver's being too 
free with the whip, the six fine horses went off at a gallop, the 
postilion got thrown, and Oliver fell upon the coach-pole, and 
narrowly escaped being shot by his own pistol, which got en' 



ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL. 



329 



tangled with his clothes in the harness, and went off. He was 
dragged some distance by the foot, until his foot came out of 
the shoe, and then he came safely to the ground under the 
broad body of the coach, and was very little the worse. The 
gentlemen inside were only bruised, and the discontented peo- 
ple of all parties were much disappointed. 

The rest of the history of the Protectorate of Oliver Crom- 
well is a history of his parliaments. His first one not pleasing 
him at all, he waited until the five months were out, and then 
dissolved it. The next was better suited to his views ; and 
from that he desired to get — if he could with safety to himself 
— the title of king. He had had this in his mind some time ; 
whether because he thought that the English people, being more 
used to the title, were more likely to obey it, or whether be- 
cause he really wished to be a king himself, and to leave the 
succession to that title in his family, is far from clear. He was 
already as high, in England and in all the world, as he would ever 
be ; and I doubt if he cared for the mere name. However, a 
paper, called the " Humble Petition and Advice," was pre- 
sented to him by the House of Commons, prayuig him to take 
a high title and to appoint his successor. That he would have 
taken the title of king there is no doubt, but for the strong op- 
position of the army. This induced him to forbear, and to as- 
sent only to the other points of the petition. Upon which occa- 
sion there was another grand show in Westminster Hall, when 
the Speaker of the House of Commons formally invested him 
with a purple robe lined with ermine, and presented him with a 
splendidly bound Bible, and put a golden sceptre in his hand. 
The next time the Parliament met, he called a House of Lords 
of sixty members, as the petition gave him power to do ; but as 
that Parliament did not please him either, and would not pro 
ceed to the business of the country, he jumped into a coach one 
morning, took six guards with him, and sent them to the right- 
about. I wish this had been a warning to parliaments to avoid 
long speeches, and do more work. 

It was the month of August, 1658, when Oliver Cromwel!*s 
favorite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole (who had lately lost her 
youngest son), lay very ill, and his mind was greatly troubled, 
because he loved her dearly. Another of his daughters was 
married to Lord Falconberg, another to the grandson of the 
Earl of Warwick, and he had made his son Richard one of the 
members of the Upper House. He was very kind and loving 
to them all, being a good father and a good husband ; but he 
loved this daughter the best of the family, and went down to 



33^ 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 



Hampton Court to see her, and could hardly be induced to stii 
from her sick room until she died. Although his religion had 
been of a gloomy kind, his disposition had been always cheer- 
ful. He had been fond of music in his home, and had kept 
open table once a week for all officers of the army not below 
the rank of captain, and had always preserved in his house a 
quiet, sensible dignity. He encouraged men of genius and 
learning, and loved to have them about him. Milton was one 
of his great friends. He was good-humored, too, with the no- 
bility, whose dresses and manners were very different from his \ 
and to show them what good information he had, he would 
sometimes jokingly tell them, when they were his guests, where 
they had last drunk the health of the " King over the water," 
and would recommend them to be more private (if they could) 
another time. But he had lived in busy tmies, had borne the 
weight of heavy state affairs, and had often gone m fear of his 
life. He was ill of the gout and ague ; and when the death of 
his beloved child came upon him in addition, he sank, never to 
raise his head again. He told his physician, on the 24th ^of 
August, that the Lord had assured him that he was not to die 
in that illness, and that he would certainly get better. This 
was only his sick fancy ; for on the 3d of September, which was 
the anniversary of the great battle of Worcester, and the day of 
the year which he called his fortunate day, he died, in the six- 
tieth 3iear of his age. He had been delirious, and had lain in- 
sensible some hours, but he had been overheard to murmur a 
very good prayer the day before. The whole country lamented 
his death. If you want to know the real worth of Oliver Crom- 
well, and his real services to his country, you can hardly do 
better than compare England under him with England under 
Charles the Second. 

He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him ; and 
after there had been, at Somerset House, in the Strand, a lying- 
in-state more splendid than sensible, — as all such vanities after 
death. are, I think, — Richard became Lord Protector. He was 
an amiable country gentleman, but had none of his father's great 
genius, and was quite unfit for such a post in such a storm of 
parties. Richard's Piotectorate, which only lasted a year and 
a half, is a history of quarrels between the officers of the army 
and the Parliament, and between the officers among themselves ; 
and of a growing discontent among the people, who had far too 
many long sermons, and far too few amusements, and wanted a 
change. At last, General Monk got the army well into his own 
bands, and then, in pursuance of a secret plan he seems to hava 



EJ^GLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL, ^^t 

entertained from the time of Oliver's deathj declared for the 
king's cause. He did not do this openly ; but in his place in 
the House of Commons, as one of the members for Devonshire 
strongly advocated the proposals of one Sir John Greenville, 
who came to the House with a letter from Charles, dated from 
Breda, and with whom he had previously been in secret com- 
munication. There had been plots and counterplots, and a re- 
'call of the last members of the Long Parliament, and an end 
of the Long Parliament, and risings of the royalists that were 
made too soon ; and most men being tired out, and there being 
no one to head the country now Great Oliver was dead, it was 
readily agreed to welcome Charles Stuart. Some of the wiser 
and better members said, — what was most true, — that in the 
letter from Breda, he gave no real promise to govern well, and 
that it would be best to make him pledge himself beforehand 
as to what he should be bound to do for the benefit of the king- 
dom. Monk said, however, it would be all right when he came, 
and he could not come too soon. 

So everybody found out all in a moment that the country musl 
be prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to condescend 
to reign over it ; and there was a prodigious firing-off of guns, 
lighting of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. 
The people drank the king's health by thousands in the open 
streets, and everybody rejoiced. Down came the arms of the 
Commonwealth, up went the royal arms instead, and out came 
the public money. Fifty thousand pounds for the king, ten 
thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of York, five thou- 
sand pounds for his brother the Duke of Gloucester. Prayers 
for these gracious Stuarts were put up in all the churches ; 
commissioners were sent to Holland (which suddenly found out 
that Charles was a great man, and that it loved him) to invite 
the king home; Monk and the Kentish grandees went to 
Dover to kneel down before him as he landed. He kissed and 
embraced Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself a-nd 
his brothers, came on to London amid wonderful shoutings, 
and passed through the army at Blackheath on the 29th of 
May (his birthday), 1660. Greeted by splendid dinners under 
tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from all the houses, by 
delighted crowds in all the streets, by troops of noblemen and 
gentlemen in rich dresses, by city companies, train-bands, 
drummers, trumpeters, the great lord mayor, and the majestic 
aldermen, the king went on to Whitehall. On entering it, he 
commemorated his restoration with the joke that it really would 
seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long 



232 A CHILD S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ago, since everybody told him that he had always wished fol 
him with all his heart. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND CALLED THE 
MERRY MONARCH. 

There never was such profligate times in England as under 
Charles the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his 
swarthy, ill-looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in 
his Court at Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst 
vagabonds in the kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), 
drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation, and com- 
mitting every kind of profligate excess. It has been a fashion 
to call Charles the Second " The Merry Monarch." Let me 
try to give you a general idea of some of the merry things that 
were done, in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat 
upon his merry throne, in merry England. 

The first merry proceeding was, of course, to declare that 
he was one of the greatest, the cwisest, and the noblest kings 
that ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted 
earth. The next merry and pleasant piece of business was, for 
the Parliament, in the humblest manner, to give him one mil- 
lion two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to settle upon 
him for life that old disputed tonnage and poundage which had 
been so bravely fought for. Then General Monk, being made 
Earl of Albemarle, and a few royalists similarly rewarded, the 
law went to work to see what was to be done to those persons 
(they were called Regicides) who had been concerned in mak- 
ing a martyr of the late king. Ten of these were merrily exe- 
cuted ; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council, 
Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded the 
Guards, and Hugh Peters, a preacher who had preached against 
the martyr with all his heart. These executions were so ex- 
tremely merry, that every horrible circumstance which Crom- 
well had abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. The 
hearts of the sufferers were torn out of their living bodies \ 
their bowels were burned before their faces \ the executioner 
cut jokes to the next victim, as he rubbed his filthy hands to- 
gether, that were reeking with the blood of the last j and the 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND 



Z^% 



heads of the dead were drawn on sledges with the Hving to the 
place of suffering. Still, even so merry a monarch could not 
force one of these dying men to say that he was sorry for what 
he had done. Nay, the most memorable thing said among 
them was, that if the thing were to do again they would do it. 

Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against 
Strafford, and was one of the most stanch of the Republicans, 
was also tried, found guilty, and ordered for execution. When 
he came upon the scaffold on Tower Hill, after conducting his 
own defence with great power, his notes of what he had meant 
to say to the people were torn away from him, and the drums 
and trumpets were ordered to sound lustily and drown his 
voice ; for the people had been so much impressed by what the 
Regicides had calmly said with their last breath, that it was the 
custom now to have the drums and trumpets always under the 
scaffold, ready to strike up. Vane said no more than this : " It 
is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man ; " 
and bravely died. 

These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps 
even merrier. On the anniversary of the late king's death, the 
bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were torn out 
of their graves in Westminster Abbey, dragged to Tyburn, 
hanged there on a gallows all day long, and then beheaded. 
Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell set upon a pole to be 
stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom would have dared 
to look the living Oliver in the face for half a moment ! Think, 
after you have read this reign, what England was under Oliver 
Cromwell, who was torn out of his grave, and what it was under 
this merry monarch who sold it, like a merry Judas, over and 
over again. 

Of course, the remains of Oliver's wife and daughter were 
not to be spared either, though they had been most excellent 
women. The base clergy of that time gave up their bodies, 
which had been buried in the Abbey ; and — to the eternal dis- 
grace of England — they were thrown into a pit, together with 
the mouldering bones of Pym, and of the brave and bold old 
Admiral Blake. 

The clergy acted this disgraceful part because they hoped 
to get the non-conformists, or dissenters, thoroughly put down 
in this reign, and to have but one prayer-book and one service 
for all kinds of people, no matter what their private opinions 
were. This was pretty well, I think, for a Protestant Church, 
which had displayed the Romish Church because people had a 
right to their own opinions in religious matters. However, theji 



234 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

carried it with a high hand, and a prayer-book was agreed upon, 
in which the extremest opinions of Archbishop Laud were not 
forgotten. An act was passed, too, preventing any dissenter 
from holding any office under any corporation. So the regular 
clergy, in their triumph, were soon as merry as the king. The 
army being by this time disbanded, and the king crowned, 
everything was to go on easily for evermore. 

I must say a word here about the king's family. He had 
not been long upon the throne, when his brother, the Duke of 
Gloucester, and his sister, the Princess of Orange, died, within 
a few months of each other,. of small-pox. His remaining sister, 
the Princess Henrietta, married the Duke of Orleans, the 
brother of Louis the Fourteenth, King of France. His brother 
James, Duke of York, was made high admiral, and by and by 
became a Catholic. He was a gloomy, sullen, bilious sort of 
man, with- a remarkable partiality for the ugliest women in the 
country. He married, under very discreditable circumstances, 
Anne Hyde, the daughter of Lord Clarendon, then the king's 
principal minister, — not at all a delicate minister either, but 
doing much of the dirty work of a very dirty palace. It be- 
came important now that the king himself should be married j 
and divers foreign monarchs, not very particular about the char- 
acter of their son-in-law, proposed their daughters to him. The 
King of Portugal offered his daughter, Catherine of Braganza, 
and fifty thousand pounds ; in addition to which, the French 
king, who was favorable to that match, offered a loan of an- 
other fifty thousand. The King of Spain, on the other hand, 
offered any one out of a dozen of princesses, and other hopes of 
gain. But the ready money carried the day, and Catherine 
came over in state to her merry marriage. 

The whole court was a great flaunting crowd of debauched 
men and shameless women ; and Catherine's merry husband 
insulted and outraged her in every possible way, until she con- 
sented to receive those worthless creatures as her very good 
friends, and to degrade herself |by their companionship. A 
Mrs. Palmer, whom the king made Lady Castlemaine, and af- 
terwards Duchess of Cleveland, was one of the most powerful 
of the bad women about the court, and had great influence 
with the king nearly all through his reign. Another merry lady, 
named Moll Davies, a dancer at the theatre, was afterwards 
her rival. So was Nell Gwyn, first an orange girl and then an 
actress, who really had good in her, and of whom one of the 
worst things I know is, that actually she does seem to hav« 
been fond of the king. The first Duke of St. Albans was this 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND, 335 

orange-girl's child. In like manner the son of a merry waiting- 
lady, whom the king created Duchess of Portsmouth, became 
the Duke of Richmond. Upon the whole, it is not so bad a 
thing to be a commoner. 

The Merry Monarch was so exceedingly merry among these 
merry ladies, and some equally merry (and equally infamous) 
iords and gentlemen, that he soon got through his hundred 
thousand pounds, and then, by way of raising a little pocket- 
money, made a merry bargain. He sold Dunkirk to the French 
king for five millions of livres. When I think of the dignity to 
which Oliver Cromwell raised England in the eyes of foreign 
powers, and when I think of the manner in which he gained 
for England this very Dunkirk, I am much inclined to consider 
that if the Merry Monarch had been made to follow his father 
for this action, he would have received his just deserts. 

Though he was like his father in none of that father's 
greater qualities, he was like him in being worthy of no trust. 
When he sent that letter to the Parliament, from Breda, he did 
expressly promise that all sincere religious opinions should be 
respected. Yet he was no sooner firm in his power than he 
consented to one of the worst acts of Parliament ever passed. 
Under this law, every minister who should not give his solemn 
assent to the prayer-book by a certain day, was declared to be 
a minister no longer, and to be deprived of his church. The 
consequence of this was, that some two thousand honest men 
were taken from their congregations, and reduced to dire 
poverty and distress. It was followed by another outrageous 
law, called the Conventicle Act, by which any person above the 
age or sixteen, who was present at any religious service not ac- 
cording to the prayer-book, was to be imprisoned three months 
for the first offence, six for the second, and to be transported 
for the third. This act alone filled the prisons, which were 
then most dreadful dungeons, to overflowing. 

The Covenanters in Scotland had already fared no better. 
A base parliament, usually known as the Drunken Parliament, 
in consequence of its principal members being seldom sober, 
had been got together to make laws against the Covenanters, 
and force all men to be of one mind in religious matters. The 
Marquis of Argyle, relying on the king's honor, had given him- 
self up to him ; but he was wealthy, and his enemies wanted 
his wealth. He was tried for treason, on the evidence of some 
private letters in which he had expressed opinions — as well he 
might — more favorable to the government of the late Lord 
Protector than of the present merry and religious king He 



336 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

was executed, as were two men of mark among the Covenant- 
ers 'y and Sharp, a traitor who had once been the friend of the 
Presbyterians, and betrayed them, was made Archbishop of 
St. Andrews, to teach the Scotch how Xo like bishops. 

Things being in this merry state at home, the Merry Mon- 
arch undertook a war with the Dutch ; principally because they 
interfered with an African company, established with the two 
objects of buying gold-dust and slaves, of which the Duke of 
York was a leading member. After some preliminary hostili- 
ties, the said duke sailed to the coast of Holland with a fleet 
of ninety-eight vessels of war, and four fire-ships. This en« 
gaged with the Dutch fleet, of no fewer than one hundred and 
thirteen ships. In the great battle between the two forces, the 
Dutch lost eighteen ships, four admirals, and seven thousand 
men. But the English on shore were in no mood of exultation 
when they heard the news. 

For this was the year and the time of the Great Plague in 
London. During the winter of 1664 it had been whispered 
about, that some few people had died here and there of the 
disease called the Plague, in some of the unwholesome suburbs 
around London. News was not published at that time as it is 
now, and some people believed these rumors, and some dis- 
believed them, and they were soon forgotten. But in the 
month of May, 1665, it began to be said all over the town that 
the disease had burst out with great violence in St. Giles's, 
and that the people were dying in great numbers. This soon 
turned out to be awfully true. The roads out of London were 
choked up by people endeavoring to escape from the infected 
city, and large sums were paid for any kind of conveyance. 
The disease soon spread so fast, that it was necessary to shut 
up the houses in which sick people were, and to cut them off 
from communication with the living. Every one of these 
houses was marked on the outside of the door with a red cross, 
and the words, " Lord, have mercy upon us ! " The streets 
were all deserted, grass grew in the public ways, and there 
was a dreadful silence in the air. When night came on, dis- 
mal rumblings used to be heard ; and these were the wheels of 
the death-carts, attended by men with veiled faces and holding 
cloths to their mouths, who rang doleful bells, and cried in a 
loud and solemn voice, " Bring out your dead ! " The corpses 
put into these carts were buried by torchlight in great pits ; no 
service being performed over them ; all men being afraid to 
stay for a moment on the brink of the ghastly graves. In the 
general fear, children ran away from their parents, and parents 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 



337 



from their children. Some who were taken ill, died alone, and 
without any help. Some were stabbed or strangled by hired 
nurses, who robbed them of all their money, and stole the very 
beds on which they lay. Some went mad, dropped from the 
windows, ran through the streets, and in their pain and frenzy 
flung themselves into the river. 

These were not all the horrors of the time. The wicked 
and dissolute, in wild desperation, sat in the taverns singing 
roaring songs, and were stricken as they drank, and went out 
and died. The fearful and superstitioUrS, persuaded themselves 
that they saw supernatural sights, — burning swords in the sky, 
gigantic arms and darts. Others pretended that at nights vast 
crowds of ghosts walked round and round the dismal pits. One 
madman, naked, and carrying a brazier full of burning coals 
upon his head, stalked through the streets, crying out that he 
was a prophet, commissioned to denounce the vengeance of the 
Lord on wicked London. Another always went to and fro, 
exclaiming, " Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed ! " 
A third awoke the echoes in the dismal streets by night and by 
day, and made the blood of the sick run cold, by calling out 
incessantly, in a deep, hoarse voice, " O the great and dreadful 
God ! " 

Through the months of July and August and September, 
the Great Plague raged more and more. Great fires were 
lighted in the streets, in the hope of stopping the infection, 
but there was a plague of rain, too, and it beat the fires out. 
At last, the winds which usually arise at that time of the year 
which is called the equinox, when day and night are of equal 
length all over the world, began to blow, and to purify the 
wretched town. The deaths began to decrease, the red crosses 
slowly to disappear, the fugitives to return, the shops to open, 
pale, frightened faces to be seen in the streets. The plague 
had been in every part of England ; but in close and unwhole- 
some London it had killed one hundred thousand people. 

All this time, the Merry Monarch was as merry as ever, and 
as worthless as ever. All this time, the debauched lords and 
gentlemen and the shameless ladies danced and gamed and 
drank, and loved and hated one another, according to their 
merry ways. So little humanity did the government learn from 
the late affliction, that one of the first things that Parliament 
did when it met at Oxford (being as yet afraid to come to Lon- 
don) was to make a law called the Five-Mile Act, expressly di- 
rected against those poor ministers, who, in the time of the 
plague, had manfully come back to comfort the unhappy people, 

22 



338 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



This infamous law, by forbidding them to teach in any school 
or to come within five miles of any city, town, or village, 
doomed them to starvation and death. 

The fleet had been at sea and healthy. The King of France 
was now in alliance with the Dutch ; though his navy was 
chiefly employed in looking on while the English and Dutch 
fought. The Dutch gained one victory ; and the English 
gained another and a greater ; and Prince Rupert, one of the 
English admirals, was out in the Channel one windy night, 
looking for the French admiral, with the intention of giving him 
something more to do than he had had yet, when the gale in- 
creased to a storm, and blew him into Saint Helen's. That 
night was the 3d of September, 1666; and that wind fanned the 
Great Fire of London. 

It broke out at a baker's shop near London Bridge, on the 
spot on which the monument now stands as a remembrance of 
those raging flames. It spread and spread, and burned and 
burned for three days. The nights were lighter than the days ; 
in the daytime, there was an immense cloud of smoke ; and in 
the night-time, there was a great tower of fire mounting up into 
the sky, which lighted the whole country landscape for ten 
miles round. Showers of hot ashes rose into the air, and fell 
on distant places ; flying sparks carried the conflagration to 
great distances, and kindled it in twenty new spots at a time ; 
church-steeples fell down with tremendous crashes ; houses 
crumbled into cinders by the hundred and the thousand. The 
summer had been intensely hot and dry ; the streets were very 
narrow, and the houses mostly built of wood and plaster. Noth- 
ing could stop the tremendous fire but the want of more houses 
to burn ; nor did it stop until the whole way from the Tower to 
Temple Bar was a desert, composed of the ashes of thirteen 
thousand houses and eighty-nine churches. 

This was a terrible visitation at the time, and occasioned 
great loss and suffering to the two hundred thousand burnt out 
people, who were obliged to lie in the fields under the open 
night sky, or in hastily made huts of mud and straw, while the 
lanes and roads were rendered impassible by carts which had 
broken down as they tried to save their goods. But the fire 
was a great blessing to the city afterwards, for it arose from its 
ruins very much improved, — built more regularly, more widely, 
more cleanly, and carefully, and therefore much more healthily. 
It might be far more healthy than it is, but there are some 
people in it still, — even now at this time, nearly two hundred 
years later, — so selfish, so pig-headed, and so ignorant, th^t J 



1 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. -t^Z^ 

doubt if even another great fire would warm them up to do their 
duty. 

The Catholics were accused of having wilfully set London 
in flames ; one poor Frenchman, who had been mad for years, 
even accused himself of having with his own hand fired the first 
house. There is no reasonable doubt, however, that the fire 
was accidental. An inscription on the monument long attri- 
buted it to the Catholics ; but it is removed now, and was always 
a malicious and stupid untruth. 

Second Part. 

That the Merry Monarch might be very merry indeed, in 
the merry times when his people were suffering under pestilence 
and fire, he drank and gambled and flung away among his fa- 
vorites the money which the Parliament had voted for the war. 
The consequence of this was, that the stout-hearted English 
sailors were merrily starving of want, and dying in the streets \ 
while the Dutch, under their admirals, De Witt and De Ruyter, 
came into the river Thames, and up the river Medway as far as 
Upnor, burned the guard-ships, silenced the weak batteries, 
and did what they would to the English coast for six whole 
weeks. Most of the English ships that could have prevented 
them had neither. powder nor shot on board \ in this merry 
reign, public officers made themselves as merry as the king did 
with the public money ; and when it was intrusted to them to 
spend in national defences or preparations, they put it into 
their own pockets with the merriest grace in the world. 

Lord Clarendon had, by this time, run as long a course as 
is usually allotted to the unscrupulous ministers of bad kings. 
He was impeached by his political opponents, but unsuccess- 
fully. The king then commanded him to withdraw from Eng- 
land and retire to France, which he did, after defending him- 
self in writing. He was no great loss at home, and died abroad 
some seven years afterwards. 

There then came into power a ministry called the Cabal 
Ministry, because it was composed of Lord Clifford, the Earl of 
Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham (a great rascal, and the 
king's most powerful favorite), Lord Ashley, and the Duke of 
Lauderdale, c. a. b. a. l. As the French were making conquests 
in Flanders, the first Cabal proceeding was to make a treaty 
with the Dutch, for uniting with Spain to oppose the French. \\ 
was no sooner made than the Merry Monarch, who always 
wanted to get money without being accountable to a parliament 



34© A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

for his expenditure, apologized to the King of France for hav- 
ing had anything to do with it, and concluded a secret treaty 
with him, making himself his infamous pensioner to the amount 
of two millions of livres down, and three millions more a year \ 
and engaging to desert that very Spain, to make war against 
those very Dutch, and to declare himself a Catholic when a con- 
venient time should arrive. This religious king had lately been 
crying to his Catholic brother on the subject of his strong desire 
to he a Catholic ; and now he merrily concluded this treason- 
able conspiracy against the country he governed, by undertak- 
ing to become one as soon as he safely could. For all of which, 
though he had had ten merry heads instead of one, he richly de- 
served to lose them by the headsman's axe. 

As his one merry head might have been far from safe, if 
these things had been known, they were kept very quiet, and 
war was declared by France and England against the Dutch. 
But a very uncommon man, afterwards most important to Eng- 
lish history and to the religion and liberty of this land, arose 
among them, and for many long years defeated the whole pro- 
jects of France. This was William of Nassau, Prince of Orange,^ 
son of the last Prince of Orange of the same name, who married 
the daughter of Charles the First of England. He was a 
young man at this time, only just of age ; but he was brave, 
cool, intrepid and wise. His father had been so detested, that, 
upon his death, the Dutch had abolished the authority to 
which this son would have otherwise succeeded (Stadtholder it 
was called), and placed the chief power in the hands of John 
de Witt, who educated this young prince. Now the Prince 
became very popular, and John de Witt's brother Cornelius was 
sentenced to banishment on a false accusation of conspiring to 
kill him, John went to the prison where he was to take him 
away to exile, in his coach ; and a great mob who collected on 
the occasion, then and there cruelly murdered both the brothers. 
This left the government in the hands of the prince, who was 
really the choice of the iiation ; and from this time he exercised 
it with the greatest vigor, against the whole power of France, 
under its famous generals, Conde and Turenne, and in support 
of the Protestant religion. It was full seven years before this 
war ended in a treaty of peace made at Nimeguen, and its de- 
tails would occupy a very considerable space. It is enough to 
say that William of Orange established a famous character 
with the whole world ; and that the Merry Monarch, adding to 
and improving on his former baseness, bound himself to do 
everything the King of France liked, and nothing the King of 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 341 

Firttice did not like, for a pension of one hundred thousan** 
pounds a year, which was afterwards doubled. Besides thi 
the King of France, by means of his corrupt ambassador — ^ 
wrote accounts of his proceedings in England, which art 
always to be believed, I think — bought our English memb 
of parliament, as he wanted them. So, in point of fact, du 
a considerable portion of this merry reign, the King of Fr: 
was the real king of this country. 

But there was a better time to come ; and it was to 
(though his royal uncle little thought so) through tha' 
William, Prince of Orange. He came over to Engla- 
Mary, the elder daughter of the Duke of York, an'' 
her. We shall see by and by what came of that ma^, 
why it is never to be forgotten. 

This daughter was a Protestant, but her mot- 
Catholic. She and her sister Anne, also a Protest- 
only survivors of eight children. Anne aften 
George, Prince of Denmark, brother to the king f 

Lest you should do the Merry Monarch the 
posing that he was even good-humored (exc<. 
everything his own way), or that he was high 
orable, I will mention here what was done ' 
House of Commons, Sir John Coventry. 
in a debate about taxing the theatres, '- 
fence. The king agreed with his illegi^ 
born abroad, and whom he had mad 
take the following merry vengeance 
fifteen armed men to one, and to 
Like master, like man. The ki' 
ingham, was strongly suspectc 
murder the Duke of Ormond 
dinner ; and that duke's spir 
suaded of his guilt, that \ 
stood beside the king, " "^ 
at the bottom of this la 
you warning, if he eve^ 
be upon you, and w^^ 
will do so, though I fi^ 
and I tell you this in ^ 
quite sure of my (^' 
times indeed. 

There was 
ing, with two 
crown, the glc 




A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

ere kept in the Tower. This robber, who was a swaggeur^^ 

ffian, being taken, declared that he was the man who had en- 

■vored to kill the Duke of Ormond, and that he had meant 

11 the king too, but was overawed by the majesty of his 

^arance, when he might otherwise have done it, as he was 

ig at Battersea. The king being but an ill-looking fellow, 

. 't believe a word of this. Whether he was flattered, or 

r he knew that Buckingham had really set Blood on to 

the duke, is uncertain. But it is quite certain that he 

: d this thief, gave him an estate of five hundred a year 

• : ^ (which had had the honor of giving him birth), and 

aim at court to the debauched lords and the shame- 

- who made a great deal of him, — as I have no doubt 

have made of the Devil himself, if the king had in- 

m. 

'' pensioned as he was, the king still wanted money, 

ly was obliged to call parliaments. In these, the 

he Protestants was to thwart the Catholic Duke 

arried a second time ; his new wife being a 

fifteen years old, the Catholic sister of the 

In this they were seconded by the Protes- 

'igh to their own disadvantage ; since, to 

' power, they were even willing to exclude 

^ object was to pretend to be a Protes- 

a Catholic ; to swear to the bishops 

hed to the English Church, while he 

way to the King of France ; and 

' m, and all who were attached to 

■ be powerful enough to confess 

le, the King of France, know- 

igued with the king's oppo- 

> the king and his friends. 

; ^he Catholic religion be^ 

' M come to the throne, 

tending to share their 

A certain Dr. Tonge, 

^ hands of a certain 

o pretended to have 

' Jge of a great plot 

nblishment of the 

by this unlucky 

council, contra- 

-idiculous and 

e secretary of 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 343 

the Duchess of York. Now, although what he charged against 
Coleman was not true, and although you and I know very well 
that the real, dangerous Catholic plot was that one with the 
King of France of which the Merry Monarch was himself the 
head, there happened to be found among Coleman's papers, 
some letters, in which he did praise the days of Bloody Queen 
Mary, and abuse the Protestant religion. This was great good 
fortune for Titus, as it seemed to confirm him ; but better still 
was in store. Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate who 
had first examined him, being unexpectedly found dead near 
Primrose Hill, was confidently believed to have been killed by 
the Catholics. I think there is no doubt that he had been mel- 
ancholy mad, and that he killed himself ; but he had a great 
Protestant funeral, and Titus was called the Saver of the Na- 
tion, and received a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year. 
As soon as Oates's wickedness had met with this success, 
up started another villain named William Bedloe, who, attracted 
by a reward of five hundred pounds offered for the apprehen- 
son of the murderers of Godfrey, came forward and charged 
two Jesuits and some other persons with having committed it 
at the queen's desire. Gates, going into partnership with this 
new informer, had the audacity to accuse the poor queen her- 
self of high treason. Then appeared a third informer, as bad 
as either of the two, and accused a Catholic banker, named 
Stayley, of having said that the king was the greatest rogue in 
the world (which would not have been far from the truth), and 
that he would kill him with his own hand. This banker being 
at once tried and executed, Coleman and two others were tried 
and executed. Then a miserable wretch named Prance, a 
Catholic silversmith, being accused by Bedloe, was tortured into 
confessing that he had taken part in Godfrey's murder, and into 
accusing three other men of having committed it. Then five 
Jesuits were accused by Gates, Bedloe, and Prance together, 
and were all found guilty, and executed on the same kind of 
contradictory and absurd evidence. The queen's physician and 
three monks were next put on their trial ; but Gates and Bed- 
loe had for the time gone far enough, and these four were ac- 
quitted. The public mind, however, was so full of a Catholic 
plot, and so strong against the Duke of York, that James con- 
sented to obey a written order from his brother, and to go with 
his family to Brussels, provided that his rights should never be 
sacrificed in his absence to the Duke of Monmouth. The 
House of Commons, not satisfied with this as the king hoped, 
passed a bill to exclude the duke from ever succeeding to the 



344 



A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 



throne. In return, the king dissolved the Parliament. He had 
deserted his old favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, who was 
now in the opposition. 

To give any sufficient idea of the miseries of Scotland in 
this merry reign would occupy a hundred pages. Because the 
people would not have bishops, and were resolved to stand by 
their solemn League and Covenant, such cruelties were inflicted 
upon them as make the blood run cold. Ferocious dragoons 
galloped through the country to punish the peasants for 
deserting the churches ; sons were hanged up at their fathers' 
doors for refusing to disclose where their fathers were con- 
cealed ; wives were tortured to death for not betraying their 
husbands ; people were taken out of their fields and gardens, 
and shot on the public road, without trial ; lighted matches 
were tied to the fingers of prisoners, and a most horrible tor- 
ment, called the Boot, was invented, and constantly applied, 
which ground and mashed the victims' legs with iron wedges. 
Witnesses were torturecf as well as prisoners. All the prisons 
were full ; all the gibbets were heavy with bodies ; murder and 
plunder devastated the whole country. In spite of all, the 
Covenanters were by no means to be dragged into the churches, 
and persisted in worshipping God as they thought right. A 
body of ferocious Highlanders, turned upon them from the 
mountains of their own country, had no greater effect than the 
English dragoons under Grahame of Claverhouse, the most 
cruel and rapacious of all their enemies, whose name will ever 
be cursed through the length and breadth of Scotland. Arch- 
bishop Sharp had ever aided and abetted all these outrages. 
But he fell at last ; for, when the injuries of the Scottish people 
were at their height, he was seen, in his coach-and-six coming 
across a moor, by a body of men, headed by one John Balfour, 
who were waiting for another of their oppressors. Upon this 
they cried out that Heaven had delivered him into their hands, 
and killed him with many wounds. If ever a man deserved 
such a death, I think Archbishop Sharp did. 

It made a great noise directly, and the Merry Monarch 
(strongly suspected of having goaded the Scottish people on, 
that he might have an excuse for a greater army than the 
Parliament were willing to give him), sent down his son, the 
Duke of Monmouth, as commander-in-chief, with instructions 
to attack the Scottish rebels, or Whigs, as they were called, 
whenever he came up with them. Marching with ten thousand 
men from Edinburgh, he found them, in number four or five 
thousand, drawn up at Bothwell Bridge, by the Clyde. They 



£NGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 



345 



were soon dispersed ; and Monmouth showed a more humane 
character towards them than he had shown towards that mem- 
ber of parliament whose nose he had caused to be sUt with a 
penknife. But the Duke of- Lauderdale was their bitter foe, 
and sent Claverhouse to finish them. 

As the Duke of York became more and more unpopular, 
the Duke of Monmouth became more and more popular. It 
would have been decent in the latter not to have voted in 
favor of the renewed bill for the exclusion of James from the 
throne \ but he did so, much to the king's amusement, who 
used to sit in the House of Lords, by the fire, hearing the 
debates, which he said were as good as a play. The House of 
Commons passed the bill by a large majority, and it was car- 
ried up to the House of Lords by Lord Russell, one of the best 
of the leaders on the Protestant side. It was rejected there, 
chiefly because the bishops helped the king to get rid of it ; 
and the fear of Catholic plots revived again. There had been 
another got up, by a fellow out of Newgate, named Danger- 
field, which is more famous than it deserves to be, under the 
name of the Meal-Tub Plot. This jail-bird having been got 
out of Newgate by a Mrs. Cellier, a Catholic nurse, had turned 
Catholic himself, and pretended that he knew of a plot among 
the Presbyterians against the king's life. This was very pleas- 
ant to the Duke of York, who hated the Presbyterians, who 
returned the compliment. He gave Dangerfield twenty guineas, 
and sent him to the king, his brother. But Dangerfield break- 
ing down altogether in his charge, and being sent back to 
Newgate, almost astonished the duke out of his five senses 
by suddenly swearing that the Catholic nurse had put that 
false design into his head, and that what he really knew about 
was a Catholic plot against the king ; the evidence of which 
would be found in some papers, concealed in a meal-tub in 
Mrs. Cellier's house. There they were of course, — for he had 
put them there himself, — and so the tub gave the name to the 
plot. But the nurse was acquitted on her trial, and it came 
to nothing. 

Lord Ashley, of the Cabal, was now Lord Shaftesbury, and 
was strong against the succession of the Duke of York. The 
HoHse of Commons, aggravated to the utmost extent, as we 
may well suppose, by suspicions of the king's conspiracy with 
the King of France, made a desperate point of the exclusion 
still, and were bitter against the Catholics generally. So un- 
justly bitter were they, I grieve to say, that they impeached the 
venerable Lord Stafford, a Catholic nobleman, seventy year? 



346 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

old, of a design to kill the king. The witnesses were that 
atrocious Gates and two other birds of the same feather. He 
was found guilty, on evidence quite as foolish as it was false, 
and was beheaded on Tower Hill. The people were opposed 
to him when he first appeared upon the scaffold ; but, when 
he had addressed them and shown them how innocent he was. 
>and how wickedly he was sent there, their better nature waf 
groused, and they said, " We believe you, my lord. God bless 
lyou, my lord ! " 

The House of Commons refused to let the king have any 
money until he should consent to the Exclusion Bill j but, as 
he could get it and did get it from his master, the King of 
France, he could afford to hold them very cheap. He called a 
parliament at Oxford, to which he went down with a great 
show of being armed and protected, as if he were in danger of 
his life, and'to which the opposition members also went armed 
and protected, alleging that they were in fear of the Papists, 
who were numerous among the king's guards. However, they 
went on with the Exclusion Bill, and were so earnest upon it, 
that they would have carried it again, if the king had not 
popped his crown and state robes into a sedan-chair, bundled 
himself into it along with them, hurried down to the chamber 
where the House of Lords met, and dissolved the Parliament. 
After which he scampered home, and the members of Parlia- 
ment scampered home, too, as fast as their legs could carry them. 

The Duke of York, then residing in Scotland, had, under 
the law which excluded Catholics from public trust, no right 
whatever to public employment. Nevertheless, he was openly 
employed as the king's representative in Scotland, and 
there gratified his sullen and cruel nature to his heart's con- 
tent by directing the dreadful cruelties against the Covenant- 
ers. There were two ministers, named Cargill and Cameron, 
who had escaped from the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and 
who returned to Scotland, and raised the miserable but still 
brave and unsubdued Covenanters afresh, under the name o! 
Cameronians. As Cameron publicly posted a declaration that 
the king was a forsworn tyrant, no mercy was shown to his un- 
fortunate followers after he was slain in battle. The Duke of 
York, who was particularly fond of the Boot, and derived great 
pleasure from having it applied, offered their lives to some of 
these people if they would cry on the scaffold, " God save the 
king ! " But their relations, friends, and countrymen had been 
so barbarously tortured and murdered in this merry reign, that 
they preferred to die, and did die. The duke then obtained 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 34J 

his merry brother's permission to hold a parliament in Scot- 
land, which first, with most shameless deceit, confirmed the 
laws for securing the Protestant religion against Popery, and 
then declared that nothing must or should prevent the succes- 
sion of the popish duke. After this double-faced beginning, it 
established an oath which no human being could understand, 
but which everybody was to take, as a proof that his religion 
was the lawful religion. The Earl of Argyle, taking it with the 
explanation that he did not consider it to prevent him from 
favoring any alteration, either in the Church or State, which 
was not inconsistent with the Protestant religion or with his 
loyalty, was tried for high treason by a Scottish jury, of which 
the Marquis of Montrose was foreman, and was found guilty. 
He escaped the scaffold, for that time, by getting away, in the 
disguise of a page, in the train of his daughter, Lady Sophia 
Lindsay. It was absolutely proposed, by certain members of 
the Scottish Council, that this lady should be whipped through 
the streets of Edinburgh. But this was too much even for the 
duke, who had the manliness then (he had a very little at most 
times) to remark that Englishmen were not accustomed to treat 
ladies in that manner. In those merry times, nothing could 
equal the brutal servility of the Scottish fawners but the con- 
duct of similar degraded beings in England. 

After the settlement of these little affairs, the duke returned 
to England, and soon resumed his place at the council, and his 
office of high admiral, — all this by his brother's favor, and in 
open defiance of the law. It would have been no loss to the 
country, if he had been drowned when his ship, in going to 
Scotland to fetch his family, struck on a sand-bank, and was 
lost with two hundred souls on board. But he escaped in a 
boat with some friends \ and the sailors were so brave and un- 
selfish, that, when they saw him rowing away, they gave three 
cheers, while they themselves were going down forever. 

The Merry Monarch, having got rid of his Parliament, went 
to work to make himself despotic with all speed. Having had 
the villany to order the execution of Oliver Plunket, Bishop of 
Armagh, falsely accused of a plot to establish Popery in that 
country by means of a French army, — the very thing this royal 
traitor was himself trying to do at home, — and having tried to 
ruin Lord Shaftesbury and failed, he turned his hand to con- 
trolling the corporations all over the country ; because, if he 
could only do that, he could get what juries he chose, to bring in 
perjured verdicts, and could get what members he chose re- 
turned to parliament. These merry times produced, and mad« 



348 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

chief justice of the Court of King's Bench, a drunken ruffian ol 
the name of Jeffreys; a red-faced, swollen, bloated, horrible 
creature, with a bullying, roaring voice, and a more savage 
nature perhaps than was ever lodged in any human breast. 
This monster was the Merry Monarch's especial favorite ; and 
he testified his admiration of him by giving him a ring from 
his own finger, which the people used to call Judge Jeffreys's 
Bloodstone. Him the king employed to go about and bully 
the corporations, beginning with London ; or, as Jeffreys him- 
self elegantly called it, " to give them a lick with the rough side 
of his tongue." And he did it so thoroughly, that they soon 
became the basest and most sycophantic bodies in the king- 
dom, except the University of Oxford, which, in that respect, 
was quite pre-eminent and unapproachable. 

Lord Shaftesbury (who died soon after the king's failure 
against him), Lord William Russel, the Duke of Monmouth, 
Lord Howard, Lord Jersey, Algernon Sidney, John Hampden 
(grandson of the great Hampden), and some others used to 
hold a council together after the dissolution of the Parliament, 
arranging what it might be necessary to do, if the king carried 
his popish plot to the utmost height. Lord Shaftesbury, hav- 
ing been much the most violent of this party, brought two 
violent men into their secrets, — Rumsey, who had been a sol- 
dier in the Republican army ; and West a lawyer. These two 
knew an old officer of Cromwell's, called Rumbold, who had 
married a maltster's widow, and so had come into possession 
of a solitary dwelling called the Rye House, near Hoddesdon, 
in Hertfordshire. Rumbold said to them what a capital place 
this house of his would be from which to shoot at the king, 
who often passed there going to and fro from Newmarket. 
They liked the idea, and entertained it. But one of their body 
gave information ; and they, together with Shepherd, a wine- 
merchant. Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, Lord Essex, Lord 
Howard, and Hampden, were all arrested. 

Lord Russell might have easily escaped, but scorned to do 
so, being innocent of any wrong ; Lord Essex might have easily 
escaped, but scorned to do so, lest his flight should prejudice 
Lord Russell. But it weighed upon his mind that he had 
brought into their council Lord Howard, — who now turned a 
miserable traitor, — against a great dislike Lord Russell had 
always had of him. He could not bear the reflection, and de- 
stroyed himself before Lord Russell was brought to trial at the 
Old Bailey. 

He knew very well that he had nothing to hope, having 



ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND. 3^^ 

always been manful in the Protestant cause against the two 
false brothers, the one on the throne, and the other standing 
next to it. He had a wife, one of the noblest and best of 
women, who acted as his secretary on his trial, who comforted 
him in his prison, who supped with him on the night before he 
died, and whose love and virtue and devotion have made her 
name imperishable. Of course, he was found guilty, and was 
sentenced to be beheaded in Lincoln's Inn-fields, not mao / 
yards from his own house. When he had parted from h„s 
children on the evening before his death, his wife still stayed 
with him until ten o'clock at night ; and when their final sepa- 
ration in this world was over, and he had kissed her many times, 
he still sat for a long while in his prison talking of her good- 
ness. Hearing the rain fall fast at that time, he calmly said, 
" Such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which is a dull 
thing on a rainy day." At midnight he went to bed, and slept 
till four ; even when his servant called him, he fell asleep again 
while his clothes were being made ready. He rode to the scaf- 
fold in his own carriage, attended by two famous clergymen, 
Tillotson and Burnet, and sang a psalm to himself very softly 
as he went along. He was as quiet and steady as if he had 
been going out for an ordinary ride. After saying that he was 
surprised to see so great a crowd, he laid down his head upon 
the block, as if upon the pillow of his bed, and had it struck 
off at the second blow. His noble wife was busy for him even 
then ; for that true-hearted lady printed and widely circulated 
his last words, of which he had given her a copy. They mad? 
the blood of all the honest men in England boil. 

The University of Oxford distinguished itself on the very 
same day by pretending to believe that the accusation against 
Lord Russell was true, and by calling the king, in a written 
paper, the Breath of their Nostrils and the Anointed of the 
Lord. This paper the Parliament afterwards caused to be 
burned by the common hangman j which I am sorry for, as I 
wish it had been framed and hung up in some public place, as 
a monument of baseness for the scorn of mankind. 

Next, came the trial of Algernon Sidney, at which Jeffreys 
presided, like a great crimson toad, sweltering and swelling with 
rage. " I pray God, Mr. Sidney," said this chief justice of a 
merry reign, after passing sentence, " to work in you a temper 
fit to go to the other world, for I see you are not fit for this." 
"My lord," said the prisoner, composedly holding out his 
arm, "feel my pulse, and see if I be disordered. I thank 
Heaven I never was in better temper than 



350 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

non Sidney was executed on Tower Hill, on the 7th of Decern* 
ber, 1683. He died a hero, and died, in his own words, "for 
that good old cause in which he had been engaged from his 
youth, and for which God had so often and so wonderfully de- 
clared himself." 

The Duke of Monmouth had been making his uncle, the 
puke of York, very jealous, by going about the country in a 
^oyal sort of way, playing at the people's games, becoming god- 
father to their children, and even touching for the king's evil, 
or stroking the faces of the sick to cure them, — though, for the 
matter of that, I should say he did them about as much good as 
any crowned king could have done. His father had got him to 
write a letter confessing his having had a part in the conspiracy 
for which Lord Russell had been beheaded ; but he was ever a 
weak man, and as soon as he had written it, he was ashamed of 
it, and got it back again. For this, he was banished to the 
Netherlands ; but he soon returned, and had an interview with 
his father, unknown to his uncle. It would seem that he was 
coming into the Merry Monarch's favor again, and the Duke of 
York was sliding out of it, when death appeared to the merry 
galleries at Whitehall, and astonished the debauched lords and 
gentlemen, and the shameless ladies, very considerably. 

On Monday, the 2d of February, 1685, the meriy pensioner 
and servant of the King of France fell down in a fit of apoplexy. 
By the Wednesday his case was hopeless, and on the Thursday 
he was told so. As he made a difficulty about taking the sacra- 
ment from the Protestant Bishop of Bath, the Duke of York 
got all who were present away from the bed, and asked his 
brother, in a whisper, if he should send for a Catholic priest t 
The king replied, " For God's sake, brother, do ! " The Duke 
smuggled in, up the back stairs, disguised in a wig and gown, 
a priest named Huddleston, who had saved the king's life after 
the battle of Worcester, — telling liim that this worthy man in 
the wig had once sa^ed his body, and was now come to save his 
sotil. 

The Merry Monarch lived through that night, and died be* 
fore noon on the next day, which was Friday, the 6th. Two of 
the last things he said were of a human sort, and your remem- 
brance will give him the full benefit of them. When the queen 
sent to say she was too unwell to attend him, and to ask his par- 
don, he said, " Alas, poor woman ; she beg my pardon ; I beg 
hers with all my heart. Take back that answer to her," And 
he also said, in reference to Nell Gwyn, " Do not let poor Nelly 
starve.'' 



EISTGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND. ^j^^, 

He died in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and in the twentv/. 
fifth of his reign. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND. 

King James the Second was a man so very disagreeable, 
that even the best historians have favored his brother Charles, as 
becoming, by comparison, quite a pleasant character. The one 
object of his short reign was to re-establish the Catholic re- 
ligion in England ; and this he doggedly pursued with such a 
stupid obstinacy that his career very soon came to a close. 

The first thing he did was to assure his council that he would 
make it his endeavor to preserve the government, both in Church 
and State, as it was by law established ; and that he would 
always take care to defend and support the Churcji. Great 
public acclamations were raised over this fail speech ; and a 
great deal was said, from the pulpits and elsewhere, about the 
word of a king which was never broken, by credulous people 
who little supposed that he had formed a secret council for 
Catholic affairs, of which a mischievous Jesuit called Father 
Petre, was one of the chief members. With tears of joy in his 
eyes, he received, as the beginning of his pension from the King 
of France, five hundred thousand livres ; yet, with a mixture of 
meanness and arrogance that belonged to his contemptible 
character, he was always jealous of making some show of being 
independent of the King of France, while he pocketed his 
money. As — notwithstanding his publishing two papers in 
favor of Popery, (and not likely to do it much service, I should 
think), written by the king, his brother, and found in his strong 
box ; and his open display of himself attending mass — the Par- 
liament was very obsequious, and granted him a large sum of 
money, he began his reign with a belief that he could do what 
he pleased, and with a determination to do it. 

Before we proceed to its principal events, let us dispose of 
Titus Gates. He was tried for perjury, a fortnight after the 
coronation, and, besides being very heavily fined, was sentenced 
to stand twice in the pillory, to be whipped from Aldgate to 
Newgate one day, and from Newgate to Tyburn two days after* 



352 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

wards, and to stand in the pillory five times a year as long^' 

as he lived. This fearful sentence was actually inflicted on 

the rascal. Being unable to stand after his first flogging, he 

was dragged on a sledge from Newgate to Tyburn, and flogged 

as he was drawn along. He was so strong a villain that he did 

not die under the torture, but lived to be afterwards pardoned 

md rewarded, though not to be ever believed in any more. 

^•^ngerfield, the oniy other one of that crew left alive, was not 

s fortunate. He was almost killed by a whipping from New- 

gai. ^ to Tyburn ; and, as if that were not punishment enough, a 

ferocious barrister of Grey's Inn gave him a poke in the eye 

wi- ;h his cane, which caused his death, — for which the ferocious 

ban.ister was deservedly tried and executed. 

As soon as James was on the throne, Argyle and Monmouth 
wen'L from Brussels to Rotterdam, and attended a meeting of 
ScO'ttish exiles held there to concert measures for a rising in 
England. It was agreed that Argyle should effect a landing in 
Scotland, and Monmouth in England ; and that two English- 
men should be sent with Argyle to be in his confidence, and two 
Scotchmen with the Duke of Monmouth. 

Argyle was the first to act upon this contract. But two of 
his men being taken prisoners at the Orkney Islands, the gov- 
ernment became aware of his intention, and was able to act 
against him with such vigor as to prevent his raising more than 
two or three thousand Highlanders, although he sent a fiery 
cross, by trusty messengers, from clan to clan, and from glen to 
glen, as the custom then was when those wild people were to be 
excited by their chiefs. As he was moving towards Glasgow 
with his small force, he was betrayed l)y some of his followers, 
taken, and carried, with his hands tied behind his back, to his 
old prison in Edinburgh Castle. James ordered him to be ex- 
ecuted, on his old, shamefully unjust sentence, within three 
days ; and he appears to have been anxious that his legs should 
have been pounded with his old favorite, the Boot. However, 
the Boot was not applied ; he was simply beheaded, and his 
head was set upon the top of Edinburgh jail. One of those 
Englishmen who had been assigned to him was that old soldier, 
Rumbold, the master of the Rye House. He was sorely 
wounded, and within a week after Argyle had suffered with 
great courage, was brought up for trial, lest he should die, and 
disappoint the king. He, too, was executed, after defending 
himself with great spirit, and saying that he did not believe 
that God had made the greater part of mankind to carry sad- 
dies on their backs, and bridles in their mouths, and to be rid- 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND. ^t^^ 

den by a few, booted and spurred for the purpose j in which I 
thoroughly agree with Rumbold. 

The Duke of Monmouth, partly through being detained and 
partly through idling his time away, was five or six weeks be- 
hind his friend when he landed at Lyme, in Dorset ; having at 
his right hand an unlucky nobleman called Lord Grey of Werk^ 
who of himself would have ruined a far more promising expedi- 
tion. He immediately set up his standard in the marketplace, 
and proclaimed the king a tyrant and a popish usurper, and I 
know not what else ; charging him, not only with what he had 
done, which was bad enough, but with what neither he nor any- 
body else had done, such as setting fire to London, and poison- 
ing the late king. Raising some four thousand men by these 
means, he marched on to Taunton, where there were many 
Protestant dissenters who were strongly opposed to the Catho- 
lics. Here, both the rich and poor turned out to receive him, 
ladies waved a welcome to him from all the windows as he 
passed along the streets, flowers were strewn in his way, and 
every compliment and honor that could be devised was show- 
ered upon him. Among the rest, twenty young ladies came 
forward, in their best clothes, and in their brightest beauty, and 
gave him a Bible ornamented with their own fair hands, to- 
gether with other presents. 

Encouraged by this homage, he proclaimed himself king, 
and went on to Bridgewater. But here, the government troops, 
under the Earl of Feversham, were close at hand ; and he was 
so dispirited at finding that he made but few powerful friends 
after all, that it was a question whether he should disband his 
army and endeavor to escape. It was resolved, at the instance 
of that unlucky Lord Grey, to make a night attack on the king's 
army, as it lay encamped on the edge of a morass called Sedge- 
moor. The horsemen were commanded by the same unlucky 
lord, who was not a brave man. He gave up the battle almost 
at the first obstacle, which was a deep drain ; and although the 
poor countrymen who had turned out for Monmouth fought 
bravely with scythes, poles, pitchforks, and such poor weapons 
as they had, they were soon dispersed by the trained soldiers, 
and fled in all directions. When the Duke of Monmouth him- 
self fled was not known in the confusion ; but the unlucky 
Lord Grey was taken early next day, and then another of the 
party was taken, who confessed that he had parted from the 
duke only four hours before. Strict search being made, he was 
found disguised as a peasant, hidden in a ditch under fern and 
nettles, with a few peas in his pocket which he had gathered in 



354 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

the fields to eat. The only other articles he had upon him 
were a few papers and little books ; one of the latter being a 
strange jumble, in his own writing, of charms, songs, recipes, 
and prayers. He was completely broken. He wrote a miser- 
able letter to the king beseeching and entreating to be allowed 
to see him. When he was taken to London, and conveyed 
bound into the king's presence, he crawled to him on his 
knees, and made a most degrading exhibition. As James never 
forgave or relented towards anybody, he was not likely to 
soften towards the issuer of the Lyme proclamation, so he told 
the suppliant to prepare for death. 

On the 15th of July, 1685, this unfortunate favorite of the 
people was brought out to die on Tower Hill. The crowd was 
immense, and the tops of all the houses were covered with 
gazers. He had seen his wife, the daughter of the Duke of 
Buccleuch, in the Tower, and had talked much of a lady whom 
he loved far better, — the Lady Harriet Wentworth, — who was 
one of the last persons he remembered in his life. Before lay- 
ing down his head upon the block, he felt the edge of the axe, 
and told the executioner that he feared it was not sharp enough, 
and that the axe was not heavy enough. On the executioner 
replying that it was of the proper kind, the duke said, " I pray 
you have a care, and do not use me so awkwardly as you used 
my Lord Russell." The executioner, made nervous by this, 
and trembling, struck once, and merely gashed him in the 
neck. Upon this, the Duke of Monmouth raised his head, and 
looked the man reproachfully in the face. Then he struck 
twice, and then thrice, and then threw down the axe, and cried 
out in a voice of horror that he could not finish that work. 
The sheriffs, however, threatening him with what should be 
done to himself if he did not, he took it up again^ and struck a 
fourth time and a fifth time. Then the wretched head at last 
fell off, and James, Duke of Monmouth, was dead, in the 
thirty-sixth year of his age. He was a showy, graceful man, 
with many popular qualities, and had found much favor in the 
open hearts of the English. 

The atrocities committed by the government, which followed 
this Monmouth rebellion, form the blackest and most lament- 
able page in English history. The poor peasants, having been 
dispersed with great loss, and their leaders having been taken, 
one would think that the implacable king might have been 
satisfied. But no ; he let loose upon them, among other in- 
tolerable monsters, a Colonel Kirk, who had served against 
the Moors, and whose soldiers — called by the people, Kirk'^ 



£NGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND. 355 

iambs, because they bore a lamb upon their flag, as the emblem 
of Christianity — were worthy of their leader. The atrocities 
committed by these demons in human shape are far too horri- 
ble to be related here. It is enough to say, that besides most 
ruthlessly murdering and robbing them, and ruining them by 
making them buy their pardons at the price of all they pos- 
sessed, it was one of Kirk's favorite amusements, as he and 
his officers sat drinking after dinner, and toasting the king, to 
have batches of prisoners hanged outside the windows for the 
company's diversion ; and that when their feet quivered in the 
convulsions of death, he used to swear that they should have 
music to their dancing, and would order the drums to beat and 
the trumpets to play. The detestable king informed him, as 
an acknowledgment of these services, that he was " very well 
satisfied with his proceedings." But the king's great delight 
was in the proceedings of Jeffreys, now a peer, who went down 
into the West, with four other judges, to try persons accused 
of having had any share in the rebellion. The king pleasantly 
called this " Jeffreys's campaign," The people down in that 
part of the country remember it to this day as The Bloody 
Assize. 

It began at Winchester, where a poor deaf old lady, Mrs. 
Alicia Lisle, the widow of one of the judges of Charles the 
First (who had been murdered abroad by some royalist assas- 
sins), was charged with having given shelter in her house to 
two fugitives from Sedgemoor. Three times the jury refused 
to find her guilty, until Jeffreys bullied and frightened them 
into that false verdict. When he had extorted it from them, 
he said, " Gentlemen, if I had been one of you, and she had 
been my own mother, I would have found her guilty," — as I 
daresay he would. He sentenced her to be burned alive that 
very afternoon. The clergy of the Cathedral and some others 
interfered in her favor, and she was beheaded within a week. 
As a high mark of his approbation, the king made Jeffreys 
Lord Chancellor; and he then went on to Dorchester, to 
Exeter, to Taunton, and to Wells. It is astonishing, when we 
read of the enormous injustice and barbarity of this beast, to 
know that no one struck him dead on the judgment-seat. It 
was enough for any man or woman to be accused by an 
enemy, before Jeffreys, to be found guilty of high treason. 
One man who pleaded not guilty, he ordered to be taken out 
of court upon the instant, and hanged ; and this so terrified 
the prisoners in general that they mostly pleaded guilty at 
once. At Dorchester alone, in the course of a few days, Jeffreys 



356 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

hanged eighty people \ besides whipping, transporting, impriso» 
ing, and selling as slaves, great numbers. He executed, in all^ 
two hundred and fifty, or three hundred. 

These executions took place among the neighbors and friends 
of the sentenced in thirty-six towns and villages. The bodies 
were mangled, steeped in caldrons of boiling pitch and tar, and 
hung up by the roadsides, in the streets, over the very churches. 
The sight and smell of heads and limbs, the hissing and bub- 
bling of the infernal caldrons, and the tears and terrors of the 
people, were dreadful beyond all description. One rustic, who 
was forced to steep the remains in the black pot, was ever 
afterwards called " Tom Boilman." The hangman has ever 
since been called Jack Ketch, because a man of that name 
went hanging and hanging, all day long, in the train of Jeffreys. 
You wiil hear much of the horrors of the great French Revo- 
lution. Many and terrible they were, there is no doubt ; but I 
know nothing worse done by the maddened people of France, 
in that awful time, than was done by the highest judge in Eng- 
land, with the express approval of the King of England, in the 
Bloody Assize. 

Nor was even this all. Jeffreys was as fond of money for 
himself as of misery for others ; and he sold pardons wholesale 
to fill iiis pockets. The king ordered, at one time, a thousand 
prisoners to be given to certain of his favorites, in order that 
they might bargain with them for their pardons. The young 
ladies of Taunton who had presented the Bible were bestowed 
upon the maids of honor at court ; and those precious ladies 
made very hard bargains with them indeed. When the Bloody 
Assize was at its most dismal height, the king was diverting 
himself with horse-races in the very place where Mrs. Lisle had 
been executed. When Jeffreys had done his worst, and came 
home again, he was particularly complimented in the Royal 
Gazette \ and when the king heard that, through drunkenness 
and raging, he was very ill, his odious Majesty remarked that 
such another man could not easily be found in England. Be- 
sides all this, a former sheriff of London, named Cornish, was 
hanged within sight of his own house, after an abominably con- 
ducted trial, for having had a share in the Rye House Plot, on 
evidence given by Rumsey which that villain was obliged to 
confess was directly opposed to the evidence he had given on 
the trial of Lord Russell. And on the very same day, a worthy 
widow named Elizabeth Gaunt, was burned alive at Tybuxn, for 
having sheltered a wretch who himself gave evidence against 
her. She settled the fuel about herself with her own hands, so 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND, 35^ 

that the flames should reach her quickly ; and nobly said, with 
her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred command of 
God to give refuge to the outcast, and not to betray the wan^ 
derer. 

After all this hanging, beheading, burning, boiling, mutila« 
ting, exposing, robbing, transporting, and selling into slavery, 
of his unhappy subjects, the king not unnaturally thought that 
he could do whatever he would. So he went to work to change 
the religion of the country with all possible speed ; and what 
he did was this. 

He first of all tried to get rid of what was called the Test 
Act — which prevented the Catholics from holding public em- 
ployments — by his own power of dispensing with the penalties. 
He tried it in one case ; and eleven of the twelve judges decid- 
ing in his favor, he exercised it in three others, being those of 
three dignitaries of University College, Oxford, who had be- 
come Papists, and whom he kept in their places and sanctioned. 
He revived the hated Ecclesiastical Commission, to get rid of 
Compton, Bishop of London, who manfully opposed him. He 
solicited the pope to favor England with an ambassador ; which 
the pope (who was a sensible man then) rather unwillingly did. 
He flourished Father Petre before the eyes of the people on 
all possible occasions. He favored the establishment of con- 
vents in several parts of London. He was delighted to have 
the streets, and even the court itself, filled with monks and 
friars in the habits of their orders. He constantly endeavored 
to make Catholics of the Protestants about him. He held 
private interviews, which he called " closetings," with those 
members of Parliament who held offices, to persuade them to 
consent to the design he had in view. When they did not con- 
sent, they were removed, or resigned of themselves, and their 
places were given to Catholics. He displaced Protestant officers 
from the army, by every means in his power, and got Catholics 
into their places too. He tried the same thing with the cor- 
porations, and also (though not so successfully) with the lord 
lieutenants of counties. To terrify the people into the endur- 
ance of all these measures, he kept an army of fifteen thousand 
men encamped on Hounslow Heath, where mass was openly 
performed in the general's tent, and where priests went among the 
soldiers, endeavoring to persuade them to become Catholics. For 
circulating a paper among those men advising them to be true 
to their religion, a Protestant clergyman, named Johnson, the 
Chaplain of the late Lord Russell, was actually sentenced to 
itand three times in the pillory, and was actually whipped from 



358 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

Newgate to Tyburn. He dismissed his own brother-in-law from 
his council because he was a Protestant, and made a privy 
councillor of the before-mentioned Father Petre. He handed 
Ireland over to Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, a worthless, 
dissolute knave who played the same game there for his master, 
and who played the deeper game for himself of one day put- 
ting it under the protection of the French king. In going to 
these extremities, every man of sense and judgment among the 
Catholics, from the pope to a porter, knew that the king was i 
mere bigoted fool, who would undo himself and the cause h^ 
sought to advance ; but he was deaf to all reason ; and, happily 
for England ever afterwards, went tumbling off his throne in 
his own blind way. 

A spirit began to arise in the country, which the bey^^ted 
blunderer little expected. He first found it out in the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge. Having made a Catholic a dean at C xford, 
without any opposition, he tried to make a monk a mr/ter of 
arts at Cambridge ; which attempt the university resisted, and 
defeated him. He then went back to his favorite Oxford. On 
the death of the President of Magdalen College, he com- 
manded that there should be elected to succeed him, one Mr. An- 
thony Farmer, whose only recommendation was, that he was of 
the king's religion. The university plucked up courage at last, 
and refused. The king substituted another man, and it still 
refused, resolving to stand by its own electl<>n of a Mr. Hough. 
The dull tyrant, upon this, punished Mr Hough, and five-and- 
twenty more, by causing them to b*^ expelled, and declared 
incapable of holding any church preferment j then he pro- 
ceeded to what he supposed to be his highest step, but to what 
was, in fact, his last plunge head-foremost in his tumble off his 
throne. 

He had issued a declaration that there should be no relig- 
ious tests or penal laws, in order to let in the Catholics more 
easily , but the Protestant dissenters, unmindful of themselves, 
had gallantly joined the regular church in opposing it tooth and 
nail. The king and Father Petre now resolved to have that 
read, on a certain Sunday, in all the churches, and to order it 
to be circulated for that purpose by the bishops. The latter 
took counsel with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in 
disgrace ; and they resolved that the declaration should not be 
read, and that they would petition the king against it. The 
archbishop himself wrote out the petition ; and six bishops 
went into the king's bedchamber the same night to present it, 
to his infinite astonishment. The next day was the Sundaj 



ENGLAND UNDER JAMES THE SECOND. 359 

fixed for the reading, and it was only read by two hundred 
clergymen out of ten thousand. The king resolved against all 
advice, to prosecute the bishops in the Court of King's Bench ,• 
and within three weeks they were summoned before the Privy 
Council, and committed to the Tower. As the six bishops were 
taken to that dismal place by water, the people, who were as- 
sembled in immense numbers, fell upon their knees and wept 
for them, and prayed for them. When they got to the Tower, 
the officers and soldiers on guard besought them for their bless 
ing. While they were confined there, the soldiers every day 
drank to their release with loud shouts. When they were 
brought up to the Court of King's Bench for their trial, which 
the atto'^ney-general said was for the high offence of censuring 
the govprnment, and giving their opinion about affairs of state, 
they were attended by similar multitudes, and surrounded by a 
throng af noblemen and gentlemen. When the jury were out 
at seven o'clock at night to consider of their verdict, everybody 
(except the king) knew that they would rather starve than yield to 
the kind's brewer, who was one of them, and wanted a verdict 
for his customer. When they came into court next morning, 
after resisting the brewer all night, and gave a verdict of not 
guilty, such a shout rose up in Westminster Hall as it had nevei 
heard before ; and it was passed on among the people away to 
Temple Bar, and away again to the Tower. It did not pass 
only to the east, but passed to the west too, until it reached the 
camp at Hounslow, where the fifteen thousand soldiers took it 
up and echoed it. And still when the dull king, who was then 
with the Lord Feversham, heard the mighty roar, asked in 
alarm what it was, and was told that it was " nothing but the 
acquittal of the bishops," he said, in his dogged way, " Call 
you that nothing ? It is so much the worse for them." 

Between the petition and the trial, the queen had given 
birth to a son, which Father Petre rather thought was owing to 
St. Winifred. But I doubt if St. Winifred had much to do with 
it as the king's friend, inasmuch as the' entirely new prospect 
of a Catholic successor (for both the king's daughters were 
Protestants) determined the Earls of Shrewsbury, Danby, and 
Devonshire, Lord Lumley, the Bishop of London, Admiral 
Russell, and Colonel Sidney, to invite the Prince of Orange 
over to England. The Royal Mole, seeing his danger at last, 
made, in his fright, many great concessions, besides raising an 
army of forty thousand men ; but the Prince of Orange was not 
the man for James the Second to cope with. His preparations 
were extraordinarily vigorous, and^his mind was resolved. 



3^0 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

For a fortnight after the prince was ready to sail for Eng- 
land, a great wind from the west prevented the departure of his 
fleet. Even when the wind lulled, and it did sail, it was 
dispersed by a storm, and was obliged to put back to refit. At 
last, on the istof November, 1688, the Protestant east- wind, as 
it was long called, began to blow j and on the 3d, the people 
of Dover and the people of Calais saw a fleet twenty miles long 
sailing gallantly by, between the two places. On Monday, the 
5 th, it anchored at Torbay, in Devonshire ; and the prince, 
with a splendid retinue of officers and men marched into Exeter. 
But the people in that western part of the country had suffered 
so much in the Bloody Assize, that they had lost heart. Few 
people joined him ; and he began to think of returning, and 
publishing the invitation he had received from those lords, as 
his justification for having come at all. At this crisis some of 
the gentry joined him ; the royal army began to falter ; an en- 
gagement was signed, by which all who set their hands to it 
declared that they would support one another in defence of the 
laws and liberties of the three kingdoms, of the Protestant 
religion, and of the Prince of Orange. From that time the 
cause received no check ; the greatest towns in England began, 
one after another, to declare for the prince ; and he knew that 
it was all safe with him when the University of Oxford offered 
to melt down its plate, if he wanted any money. 

By this time the king was running about in a pitiable way, 
touching people for the king's evil in one place, reviewing his 
troops in another, and bleeding from the nose in a third. The 
young prince was sent to Portsmouth, Father Petre went off 
like a shot to France, and there was a general and swift dis- 
persal of all the priests and friars. One after another, the 
king's most important officers and friends deserted him, and 
went over to the prince. In the night his daughter Anne fled 
from Whitehall Palace ; and the Bishop of London, who had 
once been a soldier, rode before her with a drawn sword in his 
hand, and pistols at his saddle. " God help me ! " cried the 
miserable king ; " my very children have forsaken me." In 
his wildness, after debating with such lords as were in London, 
whether he should or should not call a parliament, and after 
naming three of them to negotiate with the prince, he resolved 
to fly to France. He had the little Prince of Wales brought 
back from Portsmouth ; and the child and the queen crossed 
the river to Lambeth in an open boat, on a miserable, wet 
night, and got safely away. This was on the night of the 9tli 
of December- 



ENGLAISTD UN-DER JAMES THE SECOND. 361 



At one o'clock on the morning of the nth, the king, who 
had, in the mean time, received a letter from the Prince of 
Orange, stating his objects, got out of bed, told Lord North- 
umberland, who lay in his room, not to open the door until the 
usual hour in the morning, and went down the back stairs (the 
same I suppose by which the priest in the wig and gown had 
come up to his brother), and crossed the river in a small boat, 
sinking the great seal of England by the way. Horses having 
been provided, he rode, accompanied by Sir Edward Hales, to 
Feversham, where he embarked in a custom-house hoy. The 
master of this hoy, wanting more ballast, ran into the Isle of 
Sheppy to get it, where the fishermen and smugglers crowded 
about the boat, and informed the king of their suspicions that 
he was a " hatchet-faced Jesuit." As they took his money, and 
would not let him go, he told them who he was, and that the 
Prince of Orange wanted to take his life ; and he began to 
scream for a boat, — and then to cry, because he had lost a 
piece of wood on his ride which he called a fragment of our 
Saviour's cross. He put himself into the hands of the lord 
lieutenant of the county, and his detention was made known to 
the Prince of Orange at Windsor, — who, only wanting to get 
rid of him, and not caring where he went, so that he went 
away, was very much disconcerted that they did not let him go. 
However, there was nothing for it but to have him brought 
back, with some state in the way of Life Guards, to Whitehall. 
And as soon as he got there, in his infatuation, he heard mass 
and set a Jesuit to say grace at his public dinner. 

The people had been thrown into the strangest state of con- 
fusion by his flight, and had taken it into their heads that the 
Irish part of the army were going to murder the Protestants. 
Therefore, they set the bells a-ringing, and lighted watch-fires, 
and burned Catholic chapels, and looked about in all directions 
for Father Petre and the Jesuits, while the pope's ambassador 
was running away in the dress of a footman. They found no 
Jesuits ; but a man, who had once been a frightened witness 
before Jefifreys in court, saw a swollen, drunken face looking 
through a window down at Wapping, which he well remembered. 
The face was in a sailor's dress ; but he knew it to be the face 
of that accursed judge, and he seized him. The people, to 
their lasting honor, did not tear him to pieces. After knocking 
him about a little, they took him, in the basest agonies of terror 
to the lord mayor, who sent him, at his own shrieking petition, 
to the Tower for safety. There he died. 

Their bewilderment continuing, the people now lighted bon« 



363 A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

fires and made rejoicings, as if they had any reason to be gli;<f 
to have the king back again ! But his stay was very short ; for 
the English guards were removed from Whitehall, Dutch guards 
were marched up to it, and he was told by one of his late min- 
isters that the prince would enter London next day, and he 
had better go to Ham. He said Ham was a cold, damp place, 
and he would rather go to Rochester. He thought himself 
very cunning in this, as he meant to escape from Rochester to 
France. The Prince of Orange and his friends knew that per- 
fectly well, and desired nothing more.. So he went to Grave- 
send, in his royal barge, attended by certain lords, and watched 
by Dutch troops, and pitied by the generous people, who were 
far more forgiving than he had ever been, when they saw him 
in his humiliation. On the night of the 23d of December, not 
even then understanding that everybody wanted to get rid of 
him, he went out absurdly, through his Rochester garden, down 
to the Medway, and got away to France, where he rejoined the 
queen. 

There had been a council, in his absence, of the lords and 
the authorities of London. When the prince came, on the day 
after the king's departure, he summoned the lords to meet him, 
and soon afterwards all those who had served in any of the 
parliaments of King Charles the Second. It was finally re- 
solved by these authorities that the throne was vacant by the 
conduct of King James the Second ; that it was inconsistent 
with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom to be 
governed by a popish prince ; that the Prince and Princess of 
Orange should be king and queen during their lives and the 
life of the survivor of them; and that their children should 
succeed them, if they had any. That if they had none, the 
Princess Anne and her children should succeed \ that if she 
had none, the heirs of the Prince of Orange should succeed. 

On the 13th of January, 1689, the prince and princess, 
sitting on a throne in Whitehall, bound themselves to these 
conditions. The Protestant religion was established in En- 
gland, and England's great and glorious revolution was com 
plete. 



CONCLUSION. 



%^% 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

CONCLUSION. 

I HAVE now arrived at the close of my little history. The 
events which succeeded the famous revolution of 1688 would 
.neither be easily related nor easily understood in such a book 
as this. 

William and Mary reigned together five years. After the 
death of his good wife, William occupied the throne alone for 
seven years longer. During his reign, on the i6th of Septem- 
ber, 1 701, the poor weak creature who had once been James 
the Second of England, died m France. In the mean time he 
had done his utmost (which was not much) to cause William to 
be assassinated, and to regain his lost dominions. James's 
son was declared, by the French king, the rightful King of 
England ; and was called in France, The Chevalier St. George, 
and in England, The Pretender. Some infatuated people in 
England, and particularly in Scotland, took up the Pretender's 
cause from time to time, — as if the country had not had Stuarts 
enough ! and many lives were sacrificed, and much misery was 
occasioned. King William died on Sunday, the 7th of March, 
1702, of the consequences of an accident occasioned by his 
horse stumbling with him. He was always a brave, patriotic 
prince, and a man of remarkable abilities. His manner was 
cold, and he made but few friends ; but he had truly loved his 
queen. When he was dead, a lock of her hair in a ring was 
found tied with a black ribbon round his left arm. 

He was succeeded by the Princess Anne, a popular queen, 
who reigned twelve years. In her reign^ in the month of May, 
1707, the union between England and Scotland was effected, 
and the two countries were incorporated under the name of 
Great Britain. Then, from the year 1714 to the year 1830, 
reigned the four Georges. 

It was in the reign of George the Second, 1745, that the 
Pretender did his last mischief, and made his last appearance. 
Being an old man by that time, he and the Jacobites — as his 
friends were called — put forward his son- Charles Edward, 
known as the Young Chevalier. The Highlanders of Scotland, 
an extremely troublesome and wrong-headed rac^ on the sub« 



364 ^ CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

ject of the Stuarts, espoused his cause, and he joined them ; 
and there was a Scottish rebellion to make him king, in which 
many gallant and devoted gentlemen lost their lives. It was a 
hard matter for Charles Edward to escape abroad again, with 
a high price on his head ; but the Scottish people were extraor- 
dinarily faithful to him, and, after undergoing many romantic 
adventures, not unlike those of Charles the Second, he escaped 
to France. A number of charming stories and delightful songs 
arose out of the Jacobite feelings, and belong to the Jacobite 
times. Otherwise I think the Stuarts were a public nuisance^ 
altogether. 

It was in the reign of George the Third that England lost 
North America, by persisting in taxing her without her own 
consent. That immense country, made independent under 
Washington, and left to itself, became the United States, one 
of the greatest nations of the earth. In these times in which I 
write, it is honorably remarkable for protecting its subjects, 
wherever they may travel, with a dignity and a determination 
which is a model for England. Between you and me, England 
has rather lost ground in this respect since the days of Oliver 
Cromwell. 

The union of Great Britain with Ireland — which had been 
getting on very ill by itself — took place in the reign of George 
the Third, on the 2d of July, 1788. 

William the Fourth succeeded George the Fourth, in the 
year 1830, and reigned seven years. Queen Victoria, his 
niece, the only child of the Duke of Kent, the fourth son of 
George the Third, came to the throne on the 20th of June, 
1837. She was married to Prince Albert of Saxe Gotha on 
the loth of February 1840. She is very good, and much be- 
loved. So I end, like the crier, with 

God Save the Queen t 



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